When I took over the utility bills for my apartment after my two roommates left last July, there was an extra month's worth on my NSTAR bill. I carried this up until this past January (I made no effort to pay it off but just paid the minimum each month) when I paid it off in full - $447.85. Being that I was now in my new financially-sound mindset, I also set up an automatic payment plan to pay off the bill in full each month. For some reason, last Monday I just happened to check my checking account and noticed that NSTAR had taken out another payment of $447.85 from my checking account! Thankfully I had the money in there to cover it; I would have flipped if I had to pay an overdraft fee. I spoke with a woman over at NSTAR who was simply awful. Now: I am extremely patient, I do not raise my voice or curse or anything with customer service people because I understand that 1) whatever the problem is it's not their fault, 2) they deal with assholes all day long, 3) I'm just nice like that. But this woman was extremely condescending, accusatory ("You made that payment online.") and generally unhelpful. I expected to have a refund check by last Friday (easy to take money from me but such a delay in getting it back) but I haven't gotten it. I didn't have enough money in my checking account to cover my rent and didn't want to touch my savings. Now I've strung out my landlord too long and need to pay her, so I'm forced to take $500 out of my Emergency Fund to cover my rent until NSTAR makes good. This really pisses me off. I'm losing the interest on that and just the idea of touching my "untouchable" fund is annoying. The good thing is I get another paycheck on Friday and hopefully NSTAR will have sent me my $ by then. I called them only to have to leave a voice mail - unbelievable.
I guess my points here are that 1) NSTAR sucks and 2) Always keep an eye on your money. I was shocked to see my checking account decimated last week. 3) The one positive here is that, although this wasn't technically an "emergency," I did have the money available to cover a large unforeseen expense, which I wouldn't have been able to do a couple months ago.
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2 comments:
That is absolutely absurd. You need to go higher up the food chain with this one. Instead of talking to the customer service rep, you need to ask for his/her suprervisor. If the supervisor give you crap, ask to speak with his/her manager and keep on going up until you get the service you deserve. Write a letter and/or email to corporate. Even if you get your check on Friday, I'd still follow up with them and ask for some sort of compensation for a) the horrible treatment and b) the financial strain that they imposed on you due to no fault of your own. DON'T BACK DOWN!
R.W. Buffett
You think that's bad, listen to this:
I just got off the phone with another rep over there because nobody returned my message from this morning. This guy I spoke with was actually very helpful, but he said that not only was a refund request not made, but there weren't any notes on my account! Also, he said he could credit me electronically within 72 hours; the original woman I spoke with said it took a week! I didn't really want to get into it with him because he fixed the situation (hopefully) but I definitely plan on following up with this BS.
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