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Tyler Wainright › Likes
Windmill of Wielkopolska - thank you for your great comments - as soon as I will recover from my work duties I will try to comment yours pictures too - Best regards from Poznan. Yes this is hand shot 3 frames HDR image - some gentle touch in PS4 and Lightroom. I was trying new HDR workflow and somehow I think it worked. Please find also my other... - http://picasaweb.google.com/empppp...
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Tyler Wainright and sean808080 liked this
Awesome photo! I love the colors, the feel...everything
- Tyler Wainright
(Not So) Shocking News, Google Announces Chrome OS - http://regulargeek.com/2009...
Tyler Wainright liked this
Men's Health - New Testosterone Injections Work as Male Contraceptive | Health News - http://www.healthnews.com/family-...
Tyler Wainright liked this
"For years, scientists have been looking for a contraceptive to be the male equivalent to the Pill. The trials that were conducted in the 1990s found that weekly injections of testosterone reduced the sperm counts for 98 percent of the men, and the effects disappeared when the injections were stopped. However, the researchers thought that the weekly injections would be considered too unpopular and troublesome with men to be a very useful method of contraception. Since then, researchers have been experimenting with injections that are oil-based. They combined the testosterone with tea seed oil which means that once it was injected, it was absorbed very slowly by the body. This also means that the effect of a single injection could last for much longer."
- William Harryman
from Bookmarklet
sign me up!
- William Harryman
OMG! just got a bill for $3300 from the local utility monopoly because our gas meter has supposedly been broken for 3+ years. Not sure what to do here.
Sardar Mohkim Khan, دکتریـن, Alfredo and 22 other people liked this
Options I've thought of thus far: Payment plan, partial forgiveness, lawsuit, moving to Mexico.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Ppkey.
- Cristo
Do you have a landlord, or do you own your home? Property insurance? Anything?
- Louis Gray
We own the home and we have homeowner's insurance through Allstate. I suppose I'll have to run this by them if I can't get the utility co. to relent. Thanks for the tip!
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
I'd be inclined to ask them why you're just being told now that it was broken for 3 years. Seems that they should have been checking a little more closely.
- Kenton
I would call them and ask them why they didn't make sure their equipment worked properly. After all, they state all over those meters "Property of the XXX Gas Company"... not your responsibility. It shouldn't fall onto you because of their poor equipment.
- JCLeftie
Just don't pay. I don't think they can get away with switching your gas supply off. If they threaten to do so, threaten to sue back? You have legal insurance? I can't believe they could simply claim $3300 at once. It's not "reasonable". I do believe some nitwit simply tries to see if you comply. BTW I'm not even an American, so I'm just making some guesses about american legal system... But I think that you're protected from such sudden claims.
- Meryn Stol
What I do believe - given this is America - you can really sue the hell out of them if they actually cut you off from gas. Sue for damages... Like $10.000 per day or so. Use electric heating in the mean time. :)
- Meryn Stol
They are a unified utility - "Light, gas, and water". I don't know that we could realistically live without it. Furthermore, refusal to pay opens us up to consumer credit issues.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
I think whether you have legal insurance is very important here.
- Meryn Stol
Wait...the gas meter was broken for three years.....does that mean you haven't been paying for three years?
- Shevonne
Hmm sucks.. If you have insurance, I say consult a lawyer immediately before taking further steps. If not, maybe do it anyway. Quite a lot of money (plus your utilities) at stake.
- Meryn Stol
i took the mexico option -- or rather, simply didn't bother paying when cinergy concocted some absurd $1000 bill shortly before i moved back to the uk...
- Joe Dunckley
Ask them to prove their claim.
- Kevin Fox
I agree that at first, you should simply refuse to pay, and support your refusal with some line of argumentation.
- Meryn Stol
Also, I think this makes great ground for a Twitter outrage against corporate power. :) If the law would support the utility company, the law would seem unjust. -> Outrage!
- Meryn Stol
Shevonne's, question is important. If you haven't been paying for three years but using the service then you have a serious problem. The gas company is responsible for the proper operation of the equipment but you are responsible for paying for a service you use. You should also certainly demand that the gas company back up their claim. If the meter has been broken for three years then how did the gas company arrive at the $3000 figure?
- Kevin D. White
Kevin, maybe a kind of "fair" estimate.
- Meryn Stol
We get a unified bill from the gas/light/water company. Our "gas" line item has always been comically low, like $5. Then again, we've never used gas before so we had no real basis of comparison. That said, it's never been $0 and we've always paid it on time.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
from IM
Still the question is if overlooking the fact that there's no gas on the utility bill is so much of a sin that it would warrant a sudden claim... A payment arrangement to settle it all seems far more logical. Paying for what you have used is reasonable!
- Meryn Stol
"comically low" ... that's now not so comical anymore I think...
- Meryn Stol
I think it will be a pretty complicated legal matter in what respect a consumer has to check if his bill is ok. I'd consult a lawyer about it.
- Meryn Stol
OMG DANIEL how horrible. *reading thread to offer solutions.
- Mona Nomura
I agree with Meryn, you need to pay for what you've used. The final amount and the method of payment will require negotiation with the gas company and may require a lawyer. Good luck.
- Kevin D. White
When you bought the home, what kind of heating did they say the house used?
- Shevonne
First, determine what the five dollars is for. Second, do you own or rent? And whose responsibility are the meters? Third, I do agree you need to pay for what you've used but depending on the answer to two, there are various ways to approach it.
- Mona Nomura
My concern is that you own the home and it seems you knew the meters were broken for three years (or did you just find this out?). If you did know, then you are responsible. If you didn't, then Mona is right, figure out what the $5 is for, and you should try and see if your heating uses gas/propane, which should be in your house papers.
- Shevonne
I'm not sure Daniel should pay for everything he's used. If the line item had been reported correctly, might his usage have been different, perhaps radically different? I'd negotiate a *MUCH* lower amount, perhaps $1,000, and only after an explanation had been provided as to why it took three years to correct a problem that seems to not be within Daniel's control. (Outside of his ringing them up to ask about the low monthly amount.)
- AJ Kohn
If you live in the US, depending on your total cash assets, income, and where you live (rural? what state?), you might also be able to get some help with that bill from either USF or HEAP programs through your state. Contact your utility company and ask for info. Don't just assume you can't qualify. I have seen a lot of people thinking they would never qualify that did, once they...
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- April Russo (app103)
I agree with Kevin White, Daniel. If the equipment in question was the responsibility of the utility company, then there is an assumption there that would indicate had you known to pay you would've. I would seek legal advice quite frankly as utility companies can get very nasty, ruining your credit and disallowing service to your home during dispute. However, in many states it is considered a necessity to live, so there has to be some middle ground here.
- Ken Stewart | ChangeForge
If it was their fault, and they don't have concrete evidence for the $3000 but it feels valid, then you should be able to negotiate a solution so long as you have a lawyer on your side, or at least their letterhead. I'd think that after negotiation you shouldn't have a problem with coming to a settlement where you would be on the hook for half of the cost of 3+ years' usage, based on...
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- Kevin Fox
I can't say we knew our bill was unreasonably low, we were just naive. We'd never had gas (or a house) before and the cost of heating this small house with gas was surprisingly comparable to heating our apartment with electric. We really have no idea how much the average gas bill is supposed to be, but it looks like it was far higher than ours has been.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
In re: ownership and disclosure and stuff - we moved in as renters in the summer of 2005. We bought the house from our landlords in summer 2006. Supposedly the billing glitch started right around the time we bought the house and continued through 2009. The gas is used by our central heating, our single water heater, and our gas fireplace. We have not taken any particular measures to...
more...
- Daniel J. Pritchett
It's only now that we've gotten this bill that we went back and looked at our monthly "gas" line item and noticed that it does look a lot smaller than $90/mo. I imagine we *have* been underbilled for our service but we didn't know it until today. I can't imagine we'll settle for anything more onerous than a payment plan, but I still nurse fantasies of talking them into drastically reducing the bill in light of their own failure to properly monitor their own equipment.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Daniel: check your local and state legal code, many municipalities give businesses a certain time period to bill for goods or services. Once that time period has passed they cannot bill you for them. I think here it's 2 years or something similar...
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
So true Tina! In the Province of Quebec, we got a law stating that after 3 years, a company can't force you to pay. So if you manage, let's say, to escape recovering agencies for 3 years, you win.
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Well, here at least there's a difference between trying to collect a known debt (which varies by state but it can't be on your credit report more than 7 years) and the first billing for a debt. In my state there's legislation that from the time a debt is incurred a business has to bill you for it within X many months or years. If they fail to bill you for it, then they legally aren't supposed to attempt to collect it from you.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
@Tina - the 3 year limit is the best reason I've seen so far for their letter claiming that their meter "has been broken since 3/31/2006 and the difference will be reflected on your next bill". Exactly three years worth of billing, and they're giving notice today. I wonder if it's really been coincidentally broken for exactly three years or if they're quietly sticking within the legal limit?
- Daniel J. Pritchett
I'm also curious how this came to light now. The whole thing feels like a recession-inspired revenue generation program set into motion by some zealous manager at the power company. I can just see it "Ok, let's audit everyone in Memphis and see if any of their bills have been out of normal parameters for the last X years. If they are, we'll replace their equipment and demand immediate restitution. The revenue generated will get me a bonus and save two jobs in my department!"
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Daniel, yes. And it's very logical (from their perspective) that they at least try to make you pay. I mean, who knows you might have a lot of money lying around. ;)
- Meryn Stol
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