Complaint Review: Centerpoint Energy

Centerpoint Energy is a monopoly and they use that fact to falsely charge there consumers. I recieved an astronomically large natural gas bill from Centerpoint Energy that was close to $500. I contacted them to find out why the bill was the largest gas bill I have ever had for the existance of natural gas. Of course customer services says that is what the meter said and so the journey begins. I requested to have a technition come out to test the system to ensure there were no leaks and to confirm the proper operation of the meter and the reading. They scheduled the technitian but of course the time window was 4 days! Yes you are reading that correctly they said a technitian would be to my house between Monday and THursday, no time of day nothing just a window of days!! Obviously I was not home when the person arrived to do the supposed work and they left a note saying that they needed to take the meter in for maintenance and put a smart meter on while it was being performed. Well of course they never returned the orginal meter, as well they never actually told me if anything was wrong with the meter yet they wanted there extorsion money. The journey was well underway at this point. I complained about the latter and wanted them to still provide me with proof that the reading was correct because there was no meter reading listed on there website yet they listed an astronomical number for the ammount of CCF's used for the month. No reading listed just the "hypathetical" number they say they retrieved. That was back in April 2013 and I have been continually trying to get this matter resolved to date. I have spoken to 6 different managers all saying the same exact thing when I tell them the situation and that so far no one has been able to or willing to help me, "well you have not worke with me before" I think that must be part of the scripts they must be taught or something because each time I say the same thing and then they follow up with afore mentioned statement. Well this last person whoms last name is the same as a car manufacturer promised that she would be able to do what the previous supervisors could not do. So what could she do that the others could not, NOTHING I got the same exact answer from her as I got from the others. "The reading says that the numbers are correct" My question to them all was, "how was that reading taken" there reply, "it is input into the sytem" my next question is, "how is it input" there reply, "it is keyed in" my next question, " so then the reader writes that information down on a piece of paper or types it into some sort of document", there reply "yes" my final question is always, "so then is it possible that the meter reader made a mistake with the numbers" there reply is never a yes and always a dance around the question. Even after I ask them to look at the history to see if there is any sort of pattern that reflects that sort of astronomical usage and they agree that it does seem to be odd, yet they can never agree that it must be an error. Talk about frustrating, this company has no reprocussions for there actions, and there is no competition in the market so you have no choice and they know it. I have continued to pay the amounts that I know for sure I owe and this has been an open issue since April and during this last time they turned off my gas during there fact finding time period. So every since this whole matter started to go south my bill has been wrong. Point in case the average hi temperature in April 2013 was around 77-79 degrees and the average low was between 62-63 degrees. The same temperatures in April 2012 was essentially identicle except for the fact that the consumption was 225 CCF's for this year and in 2012 it was only 25!!!! Yet odly enough every month after that is basically correct. So looking at the historical data it shows that somehow just before and after they installed the smart meter my usage more than doubled every month until it was so hot that they could not say it was based on your usage that is why it is so hi. These are the numbers off of my login and historical data.

2013- Jan 396 CCF, Feb 149 CCF, Mar 147 CCF, Apr 253 CCF, May 29 CCF, June 27 CCF, July 22 ccf, Aug 18 CCF.

2012- Jan 303 CCF, Feb 58 CCF, Mar 69 CCF, Apr 25 CCF, May 19 CCF, June 18 CCF, July 18 CCF, Aug 8 CCF.

So from basically Feb thru April 2013 our consumption magically jumped more than double on average and in the month of April it jumped more than 1000%. Now I am no gas expert so I hired some and they all told me the same exact thing, Centerpoint is at fault, there is no way I could have used that much gas and if I had a leak myself and my family would be dead. If I were to post all of my data it would show that the months all closely resemble each corresponding year the the amount of consumption. Centerpoint refuses to accept that fact and frankly it feels like they are doing this to cover the cost of the labor to install the new smart meters and or other areas they are not turning a profit in. A classic case of stealing from peter to pay paul with the dubious distiction of being the only show in town. I have yet been contacted by a technical supervisor and I have yet been offered any sort of remedy other than pay the full amount do along with the reconnection fee. I feel violated and taken advantage of and to this day I am still trying to figure out when there day of reconning will come!