Complaint Review: Dominion Virginia Power - Richmond Virginia

 To the Va Power employee that posted that comment. How dare you talkdown to people you know notning about. Who do you tnink you are. Your notning more than a little above minimum wage customer service jerk that thinks tou xan talk to people like they are trash. My service is off because the morom at va power doesnt u derstand english and wouldnt give me a payment plan. I am a single mother . currently out on nedical leave for cancer. I have no car. We have no ac. So how dare you assume everyone drives a nice car n pays that but diesnt wznt to pay their ele tric bill. How dare you asdume everyone runs their ac up. Ihave neitber if tnose tbibgsi have 2 kuds sitting in the dark with a sick mother who cant work right now. I pray you one daygind yoyrself in this position and some arrogant pos like you talks to them like they are trash. I. Writing the president of the company and forwarding your commebts and hope to god your fired.

Let me give some background first. I live in a one bedroom apartment by myself. I only use the livingroom, kitchen and bathroom. When I am home I leave my house from 630am till 8pm at night most days. Then there are days and weeks I am not home at all. I knew there was a problem when I first moved in and I went from having a $25 a month bill to almost $300 dollars in a month. Then through the winter the bill just kept getting higher and higher. I called and spoke to people at Dominon on two occassions and both times they told me oh well. When the simmer months came my bills dropped to $40 dollars. I had every light on, was home more, and was running the A/C. It did not make any sense to me. I went away for a month in Dec and came back to a $150 dollar bill. Mind you I unplugged every appliance except the fridge and stove in my house. I turned off the heat and it has been off since. The bill keeps going up now it's close to the end of Janurary I am freezing at night because I refuse to turn on my heat. I have nothing plugged up and when I am home I do not use any lights but a flashlight, my fireplace, and candles. I looked at my bill again for the end of the month and Dominon is claming I have used more electricity than I did all summer. How is this possible? Won't someone help me? There is just no way I by myself can be using that much with nothing plugged up. Something seems very wrong here.

The employees of Dominion are the WORST, most rude, arrogant, just overall nasty agents I have ever spoken too, in fact I moved out of VA because I hated them so much.  After paying a $2000 electric bill on a 2 bedroom apt, I said F* VA and Dominion and I will NEVER come back to that state SOLELY based on this electric company.  They overcharge, they know they do, they base YOUR bill on the bill from the person living there, like how are you figuring their usage into my dam bill?  There is no CUSTOMER in Dominion Power, there are only make me some money by plowing everyone over agents.  Distribution and generation are the same dam thing yet you get charged for both AND fuel AND taxes AND installation fees, wth did you all install?? Your lazy butts dont come out there and in fact I bet you dont even come out of the car to check the meter but lie because you know most ppl cannot read a meter.  I never had ONE bill under 300 bucks, and I had NOTHING on, my heat was always 70 in the winter and 75 in the summer.  Never changed it, washed on the weekends at night, cut all my lights off, etc.  so how in a 2 bed apt I had a 200 or more bill idk.  When I lived in LA, I had a 180 bill in a 2 story 4 bedroom house!!!!!!  But in VA with Dominion 200 plus in a 2 bedroom, hahahha.  SOMEONE needs to control this shady criminal company and fire ALL of their employees so they can see what its like to work for a real job where you dont screw ppl over to make a buck, of course the employee does not care, he or she NEEDS you to not be able to pay so they can make their quota and get their bonuses cause they managed to squeeze 1000 out of that almost homeless family of 4, they do not care, why should they, they get their blood money for themselves and their boss, so he can buy his wife a new Ferrari and the employee can get their new benz or iphone.

Perhaps you should invest in a cheaper car? Everybody in the world has to figure out how to juggle their bills on their low pay. We cannot give you something for nothing which is what you're asking. "Work with me because I can only pay x dollars" is pretty much asking the same thing.. You use 200 dollars worth of electricity but only want to pay 50 dollars a month for it? Not going to work. You get what you pay for! Perhaps you should invest in a bus pass? What's more important? Being warm during the winter or whatever car you're dishing out nearly 500 a month for? 

I am a Dominion Virginia Power Customer and after reading the comment from the employee I do understand what they are saying however, you cannot assume that a person do not want to pay their bill. I have been in a situation where I just didn't have it. It was either my rent or the light bill, Now which one would you pay?

People are quick to say you should pay your bill but Dominion dosen't take the time to see that a person is paying a set amount every month so therefore they are paying what they can afford. I myself is now stuck with another deposit and I have two kids but I am still going to pay my amount that I pay every month. For one I only make 8.68 per hour and I have a 700.00 rent bill and a 441.27 car payment and 105.63 car insurance plus daycare and water, food, and trying to keep my children happy. And I don't get child support and have tried forever. So don't think that a person don't want to pay their bill. You are judging a person and only the man up above can do that. Personally I really don't care if you judge me or not because I know that dominion makes good money and I don't call and complain about anything to you all because you make me feel as if I am not a person and I am just some hypocrite who wants something for nothing and I really don't, I just want someone to understand and work with me because I do keep my promise. And as far as an elderly who gets a check everymonth I know for a fact that they are not charged a full amount I used help my grandmother pay her bills before she passed and her light bill was hardly nothing and she would leave lights on all night long and during the day. So don't make another person out to be the bad guy just try to put yourself in another person shoes and you would understand what that person is saying.

We have payment plans and countless assistance agencies. They help until their funds run dry. People use them all up and there simply isn't enough for everyone. You cannot get utilities for free. You simply can't. No matter how rough times are. Even in the winter, Dominion lets you get payment plans galore no matter how many you've broken. They offer all kinds of special programs to help keep your heat on during the winter. However, if you refuse to pay they cannot work with you. What if you designed something.. oh say.. clothing for example. You bought all the materials and made it. You give it to some people and send them a bill for it. They never pay their bill. Month after month.. do you continue to use YOUR money and YOUR resources and YOUR time to provide for them when you know you will not receive payment? Wouldn't you want a security deposit just in case they keep taking from you and never pay? Even so, you'd only make up a fraction of your losses due to people that cannot properly manage their money and priorities. No excuses work on me because my father is disabled. He gets ONE check a month for an extremely low amount and somehow manages to scrape by getting everything paid for. Why? Because he isn't wasteful. He takes care of what he HAS to have first. Like you HAVE to pay your house payment or else they'll take your house. You HAVE you pay your car payment or else they take your car. You HAVE to pay your car insurance or else they cancel you. So why should Dominion not cancel people that don't pay? This is a service. Not a free service. I've seen some ridiculous bills and they only get so high because people don't pay them. People don't ask why they're high when they see a $500.00 bill and just assume they were overcharged. No. It's 5 months of $100 bills that haven't been paid. Or its a few months of unpaid bills and a deposit installment because our company cannot trust you to pay the bill If you run your a/c 24/7, your bill will be high. If you leave all your lights & TVs on while at work your bill will be high. If you run your heat while you're at work, your bill will be high. Use some common sense people. You get charged for what you use. Don't use it and it wont cost you. Kthx.

We have payment plans and countless assistance agencies. They help until their funds run dry. People use them all up and there simply isn't enough for everyone. You cannot get utilities for free. You simply can't. No matter how rough times are. Even in the winter, Dominion lets you get payment plans galore no matter how many you've broken. They offer all kinds of special programs to help keep your heat on during the winter. However, if you refuse to pay they cannot work with you. What if you designed something.. oh say.. clothing for example. You bought all the materials and made it. You give it to some people and send them a bill for it. They never pay their bill. Month after month.. do you continue to use YOUR money and YOUR resources and YOUR time to provide for them when you know you will not receive payment? Wouldn't you want a security deposit just in case they keep taking from you and never pay? Even so, you'd only make up a fraction of your losses due to people that cannot properly manage their money and priorities. No excuses work on me because my father is disabled. He gets ONE check a month for an extremely low amount and somehow manages to scrape by getting everything paid for. Why? Because he isn't wasteful. He takes care of what he HAS to have first. Like you HAVE to pay your house payment or else they'll take your house. You HAVE you pay your car payment or else they take your car. You HAVE to pay your car insurance or else they cancel you. So why should Dominion not cancel people that don't pay? This is a service. Not a free service. I've seen some ridiculous bills and they only get so high because people don't pay them. People don't ask why they're high when they see a $500.00 bill and just assume they were overcharged. No. It's 5 months of $100 bills that haven't been paid. Or its a few months of unpaid bills and a deposit installment because our company cannot trust you to pay the bill If you run your a/c 24/7, your bill will be high. If you leave all your lights & TVs on while at work your bill will be high. If you run your heat while you're at work, your bill will be high. Use some common sense people. You get charged for what you use. Don't use it and it wont cost you. Kthx.

We have payment plans and countless assistance agencies. They help until their funds run dry. People use them all up and there simply isn't enough for everyone. You cannot get utilities for free. You simply can't. No matter how rough times are. Even in the winter, Dominion lets you get payment plans galore no matter how many you've broken. They offer all kinds of special programs to help keep your heat on during the winter. However, if you refuse to pay they cannot work with you. What if you designed something.. oh say.. clothing for example. You bought all the materials and made it. You give it to some people and send them a bill for it. They never pay their bill. Month after month.. do you continue to use YOUR money and YOUR resources and YOUR time to provide for them when you know you will not receive payment? Wouldn't you want a security deposit just in case they keep taking from you and never pay? Even so, you'd only make up a fraction of your losses due to people that cannot properly manage their money and priorities. No excuses work on me because my father is disabled. He gets ONE check a month for an extremely low amount and somehow manages to scrape by getting everything paid for. Why? Because he isn't wasteful. He takes care of what he HAS to have first. Like you HAVE to pay your house payment or else they'll take your house. You HAVE you pay your car payment or else they take your car. You HAVE to pay your car insurance or else they cancel you. So why should Dominion not cancel people that don't pay? This is a service. Not a free service. I've seen some ridiculous bills and they only get so high because people don't pay them. People don't ask why they're high when they see a $500.00 bill and just assume they were overcharged. No. It's 5 months of $100 bills that haven't been paid. Or its a few months of unpaid bills and a deposit installment because our company cannot trust you to pay the bill If you run your a/c 24/7, your bill will be high. If you leave all your lights & TVs on while at work your bill will be high. If you run your heat while you're at work, your bill will be high. Use some common sense people. You get charged for what you use. Don't use it and it wont cost you. Kthx.

This person has an argument. Not everyone has the advantage of being able to pay all their bills on time. However, we all need power, water, food, clothing and shelter. Whether we can pay for it or not we need it. I think Dominion needs to come up with programs to help those who cannot pay their bills, not tack on more money (security deposit) for them to pay. And then when they are in danger if disconnect they have $300 dollars added to their bill in order to reconnect. Social Services does not help I have been doing a bit of research and $100+ assistance (after a 45 wait, wow 45 days with no power) does nothing to help a $1000 bill. Some people do not wait for months for their bill to get their either. I myself just received (3) consecutive $500+ bills. Strangely enough after I complained the bills went back down. That is alot of money when your bill is usually $107 and you have $200 budgeted for that bill. That's not a person being irresponsible that's an excessive bill. Your comments are both rude and insensitive, I hate to see what your stance is when you break your budget arrangement and get that bill that you cant pay. Dont bother replying, because I can hang with the best of them. And you wont run that number on me. I am from New York and the bills never were that excessive and if they were HEAP assistance would pay the same day $700 minimum and have lights back on. VA doesnt help its people and its partly the peoples fault because they dont complain or attend city council meetings. Peace

You did not pay your bill? Really? Customers like you drive us up the wall. You miss a payment then complain because your bill is so high. When you get kicked off of the budget plan your account balance is due in full. You have to miss two consecutive payments to be kicked off. I realize this is an old report, but I find it absolutely ridiculous. You get charged a security deposit to be reconnected because the company cannot trust you to pay your bill. They're actually doing you a favor to even reconnect you and an even bigger favor by breaking that deposit up into 3 installments. Everyone wants something for nothing. This is actually one of the best power companies out there. They let you go for a good 3 months without paying your bill before they disconnect you. During winter, you have special circumstances that allow you to get out of paying your bill for another few months and get on payment plans you shouldn't be allowed on. They're partnered up with social services & other agencies to help people pay their bills. You use it, you pay for it. Simple. Unless you'd like to steal the power when you get cut off. They will catch you and charge you for it though. Along with extra fees for theft and a new deposit. I bet you'd whine about that too. Could it be possible you have two meters? They cannot cut off part of your house. It either would be all of it or none of it unless you have two meters. Could you possibly also be leaving crap running when you're not home? That usually does it. :]

Have you been overcharged on your electricity bill? By Mike Porter NBC12 News Thursday, April 21, 2005 Dominion Virginia Power says allegations it overcharged customers aren't true and that their rates are some of the lowest in the nation. But, some environmentalists disagree. Protesting outside the company's downtown headquarters Thursday by members of the Sierra Club, Public Citizen and the People's Alliance for Clean. They pointed to a 2003 report by StateCorporation Commission staff that shows Dominion had $680 million in excess earnings in 2002. The revelation isn't exactly new. But Sierra regional director Glen Besa said it needs to be hammered home again.'' The groups say the company should return money to customers. "Dominion had over half a billion dollars in overcharges which is the equivalent of $118.96 cents per Virginia family, says Besa. This is data that came out of the State Corporation Commission and that is money that should have been rebated to customers." But, company spokesman David Botkins says in fact, costs for the average residential customer have increased just 52 cents a month over the last 11 years. He says it's a study the company has disagreements with. The way the parameters of that study were laid out is something we fundamentally disagree with." Botkins says Dominion has had to eat cost increases even after performing major repair work after Hurricane Isabel and system upgrades. State lawmakers capped Virginia's electrical rates until December 31, 2010. It was based on the idea that consumers would be protected while a competitive marketplace developed. So why are these environmental groups so concerned about our rates? They say if Dominion Virginia refunds the money to customers, they'll have less money to develop "nuclear energy, which environmental groups oppose. Dominion Virginia's annual shareholders meeting is Friday.