Came home from work today and surprise, my gas has been cut off. No warning no nothing. Went online to check my bill (i'm signed up for automatic payment every month), and I have a 0 balance, checked my bank statements and it has come out successfully evey month, no problems. Call centerpoint, wait on hold for 19 minutes, get some lady who tells me their new online system has been giving them some problems, verifies that it is their mistake and then tells me that they can waive the re-connection fee ($10), but they can't get it reconnected until MONDAY. I was so pissed, I said, "what the fu**". She told me not to talk to her that way, so I got even more mad, asked for her supervisor and she hung up on me. I'm not taking a cold fuc**** shower this weekend. The only other thing that uses gas in my house is my stove and i'm going right now to buy an electric one. Oh yeah my furnace uses gas, but that won't be used again until next winter, i'm so mad. Do they make electric hot water heaters? If so i'm going to buy one this weekend. I don't want to give centerpoint energy any more of my money. I know you can switch energy providers, but can you switch gas providers? I AM FURIOUS
I've been contracting for CNP for over a year. I'm not surprised. The Customer Service department is a revolving door.
For our apartment in China, my dad freaked out and bought a electric heater because there was all this things on the news at the time about gas leaking and suffocating families in China at the time. The only problem with electric heaters are they take a long time to heat up, uses a lot of electricty, and you can only get 40 min worth of hot water at a time. It was bearable for a 2 week christmas vacation, but for our next apartment, we got a gas heater and needless to say, the last trip to China was much more enjoyable.
You kids are so funny. The best way to argue with someone is to be very angry and use angry words but without raising your voice, without calling them names, and without using profanity. You can try to say, "F**k that s**t!!! I want my gas turned on right f**king now, b**tch!!!" .. and you empower them. You give them the ability to say that you were berating them and that they don't have to tolerate that verbal abuse. On the other hand... You can say to them, "It is absolutely ridiculous that your company's incompetence causes me this grief. Do you honestly believe that it is fair to me, your customer, that I have to tolerate this? You aren't doing me ANY favors for 'waiving the re-connect fee' when it was your company's mistake that caused the disconnection. So don't pretend that you're doing ANY favors for me at all. When you provide a service, you expect and demand to get paid, right? Well, I'm paying you, so I expect and demand the service. And I demand compensation for the extreme inconvenience that I'm going through because of your company's error. It is only right and just that you provide me with compensation." Notice: angry tone... accusation... blame... that's all just fine. Just don't yell, don't call names, and don't use profanity. And, get the name of the person on the phone. Let her know that you're not mad at her - she's not the person who decided to turn off your electricity. Let her know that you're unhappy with her company. It turns her against her own company and helps her to sympathize with you. BTW - the electric companies will give you the same type of treatment. There's no avoiding it. Welcome to adulthood.
Yeah, that sucks... About 2 1/2 years ago, they removed my gas meter by accident in November... so I froze my ass off. When I talked to customer service, they told me I needed a city inspection permit to get power back on... After calling back and talking to two more people NICELY, they did come out the next day to turn it back on. And to answer your question, no... you cannot switch gas providers. Unless you move outside the Centerpoint footprint... and it's kind of a big footprint.
Trust me, you do NOT want an electric furnace and oven. Just let it go and take a shower at your parents' or a friend's house. Gas appliances are a LOT cheaper to run than electric appliance. Your electric bill is going to skyrocket with summer coming around...
"Piss" or different variations of it seem to be the word of choice here lately. Sorry to hear that reggietodd, it's happened to me too. Not that big of a roadbump in life, really. You could have saved money on the new stove and just got a nice hotel room.
It's mostly the furnace that's going to be expensive to try to keep the water at a certain temperature. If he can plan for the most part when he wants to shower and lives a long (not have to share shower time with anyone), he can turn the furnace on right before he wants to shwoer.
When you call customer service, try to remember that their job sucks and everyone they speak to are unhappy. Then be nice to them. You might be surprised that they can make exceptions.
Did I say furnace? I meant water heater... ...and no, he can't just turn on the hot water heater before he showers, because it has to heat up the whole tank I would never switch to electric appliances...
Was thinking water heater also, damn it you screwed me up. Also when I said right away... I meant within a hour (or two), which is why i made the "plan for the most part when he wants to shower" statement. Like I've said, the electric water heater wasn't something that I liked, but if he really wants to stick it to center point, he does have the option to cut his nose to spite his face.
