American Electric Power, AEP, Southwestern Electric Power, ripoff online bill pay rude paid same bill twice on time and got disonnected Canton, Ohio
We use AEP Electric and have for many years. I used online bill pay to may my most recent bill (have used this service MANY times), recieved my confirmation number and my power was cut off two weeks later with no disconnect notice and no regard for the fact I had already paid.
When calling customer service, they would not even HEAR my confirmation number for the payment transaction. Payment was made on April 7, 2006 and service was disconnected on April 25, 2006. Was told it was MY fault this had happened and treated very rudely.
We have two small children in the home (3yrs old and 1yr old) so we were desperate to have power back on. Made same payment AGAIN by Debit card. That payment was processed at 10:00am. At 4:00 pm we were told the technician may or may not make it to turn power on that day. The fact that we had told them about our asthmatic 1yr old made no difference.
After MANY phone calls to extremely rude customer service people, we were told to just wait and the power would be on by 10:00am the following day.
When we asked one of the operators for her supervisor's name she replied that there WAS NOONE above her whose name we could get. Janet Poole. I assume she OWNS AEP electric.
Bottom line - these are uncaring, rude, not helpful people who are unable to admit fault and make right their mistakes. BEWARE!
Lisa
MINEOLA, Texas
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Ashley
MINEOLA,Texas,
U.S.A.
Original Writer of Report, Response to Rebuttal
#3Author of original report
Tue, July 31, 2007
For your information "EX-Employee", my payment WAS made with Checkfree and by the time I got finished with AEP and got it all straightened out, my account had over a $200 credit. I did NOT recieve a disconnect notice because my bill WAS paid on time.
It seems, "EX-Employee" that all you have time to do is sit around and make children and play on the computer responding on behalf of a company that you no longer even WORK FOR!
Let's make one thing very clear, when you know about the situation being spoken of, THEN maybe someone on this planet could benefit from your worthless 2-cents. But, "EX-Employee", that day is NOT today! Have a nice one..... :)
Tina
Haughton,Louisiana,
U.S.A.
AEP needs to take responsibility
#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, July 30, 2007
If this person used an authorized payment vendor, her payment would have posted within two minutes of time paid. There are many unauthorized payment vendors online, while there is only 1 authorized vendor. Many banks will take the customers' payments online and usually the customer does not read the fine line advising when payment will actually be made to AEP. Customers think they paid AEP when they make these types of payments but they actually aren't. They're just paying someone to make their payment for them. When a payment is made with one of these vendors, it takes from 3 business days to 14 business days for the payment to be paid to the intended payee (AEP). When a customer uses an unauthorized payment vendor AEP cannot do anything with that company's confirmation as they are not linked to that company. When made thru Checkfree (the only authorized vendor) any AEP customer service rep can locate the payment within about 60 seconds. This customer was already past her due date when she made that first payment. On the day a meter is read, a bill is generated and dated for that day, this gives that customer 10 days to pay their bill by the due date. The earliest a disconnect notice would be sent out is when the customer is 28-32 days late, when the meter is read for the next month. That disconnect notice would give that customer an additional 10-14 days to pay before the actual order to disconnect service would even generate, much less power being disconnected. If the bill was less $100.00 then a disconnect notice would not generate then but would take 2-3 months before a notice would go out and would still give the customer 10-14 days to pay before disconnection occured. If she did not receive a disconnect notice then she needs to check with the postal service because that disconnect was sent out. Ninety-nine percent of people disconnected for non-pay claim not to have received a disconnect notice. The bills and cutoff notices do advise customer reconnect will be within 24 hours of payment with an authorized payment vendor or location. As far having an asthmatic child, this customer needs to get her priorities straight and make sure her bill is paid ontime. I have 6 children, two with asthma, you better believe my bill is paid before the date on the disconnect notice (and I do get my disconnect notices) because I know what "I" will be putting my children thru when I don't pay my bills on time. Its called being a responsible parent. And the reason I no longer work with AEP is because I got sick of listening to people like this blame their irresponsibility on someone else.