What am I being charged for…?!
I recently picked up and moved to Austin to try to get involved in the music scene there. To get to the point, I finally received my first electricity bill and was floored when I saw the bill for my modest one bedroom apartment added up to $244.55.
Now, I was aware ahead of time of the lofty deposit that they charge if you are a new customer which in itself is absolutely absurd. It should be based on credit score, in which case I should have not had to pay any deposit, but I digress.
Looking at the charges I have an Energy and ‘Fuel’ charge (I assume this is just an itemized look at what energy types I am using?) which add up to just under $10. Let me clarify; I used $10 worth of energy and I am paying a bill of almost $250.
Here is a comprehensive list of the rest of the charges:
| Customer Charge | $6.00 |
| Drainage Fee | $7.75 |
| Initiate Service Fee | $20.00 |
| Deposit | $200.00 |
Ignoring the deposit, given that it’s already been discussed, what the hell is a customer fee? Is it like: I pay you for the pleasure of being able to pay you again for the actual service rendered? I think I should start including that when I do design work. Next we have ‘Drainage’. When I first saw that I got confused and thought this was my water bill. Finally, the initiate service fee, so I am being charged again to be able to be their customer.
As far as I can tell the drainage and customer charges are monthly which essentially means I am paying more in fees than my actual monthly energy usage which is something that doesn’t sit well with me.
UPDATE (02/04/2010): They also charge $5 to pay online with your credit card, it’s really quite impressive how much they charge for how little they do.
I feel your pain. Those billing practices are one of the things I definately did not miss from living in Austin. My electric provider I had when I lived in NW Austin, for the longest time, didn’t even break down the charges on my electric bill. After many customer complaints, they finally displayed the breakdown. What a surprise that was…I learned they were charging fees up to $80 in order for them just to DELIVER the electricity – that’s before I would even use it! Same complaints with water/sewer bill – I would use next to nothing worth of water and my water bill was a minimum of $40. As a comparison, I use the same amount of water here in San Antonio and now pay around $5.