Complaint Review: Alliant Energy

We have very difficult circumstances surrounding brain damage my wife has. I and her are both unemployed, her to disability requiring 24/7 supervision and me because she needs a 24/7 caregiver at home. Sometime around November or December we started getting $400-$500 electric Bill's, 3 to 4 times the norm for that time of year. Our only income is fixed disability and about 1/3 of our prior income before the botched surgery. I called Alliant multiple times when the higher bills arrived, asking if they could send someone out to help me determine the source of the electric draw. They said we must be running a lot of space heaters, which we weren't, and that it was not their problem. The bill got to $1500 before the county roads people showed up saying we had a broken pipe unleashing a torrent of water into the ditch on our property. It cost $2300 to repair that issue.

Fast forward and we were on a 18 month payment agreement. Logged on early June, we were current - no new bill. Then early July, I logged in, noticed the bill was due and paid $244 online on the spot. Then I get the disconnect notice the next day with the full amount of everything due. I call in and explain the situation. They said we could pay the full amount or set up a second payment agreement, but it would require a payment of $640 to get it going. I was told I had close to a week to address it. I did not have $640. No assistance appears to be available. So a few days later someone hits my car and allstate settled the claim in two days flat so I had the money. I called Alliant and the said the would take the $640 but the payment arrangement would only be 6 months instead of 18. I told them 12 months might be doable but there is no way we could do 6 months. The customer service supervisor refused to escalate the call to a department head. I pay $875 i on a $1500 bill and yet they still shut me off for no other apparent reason than for refusing to sign a payment agreement with terms very different than the first one - one that adds an extra $150 a month onto the bill instead of $75-80 as it was before. I gave them all the money I had and the disconnected us. I had to take the wife to a hotel last night because she was uncomfortable and the house just wasn't really safe to be in. Currently looking into a rooming house at an extra cost - talk about insult to injury and to me as a human being.

I have been with her for 18 years and the electric has never been shut off, until yesterday. And nonetheless we celebrate 15 years of marriage today while the world falls apart around us. Alliant customer service reps talk over customers and refuse to escalate to department heads or company executives when circumstances are extraordinary. And there is nothing above and beyond about this monopolistic company, if the just would have helped me isolate the source of the electrical draw, our bill wouldn't gotten out of hand. What's 10-15 minutes for a tech to help diagnose a problem for a struggling customer.