Tweet
I used to work for an electric company located somewhere in the central United States. This company was one of the largest providers of energy to three nearby border states. The biggest problem we had for ourselves was that lots of things that should have been caught were not. The software we used hadn't been updated in about 7 years and was poorly suited for keeping up with all the other modern changes and improvments being carried throughout the rest of the system. It was antiquated enough that every dozen calls or so I would reboot it on purpose just to prevent an overload and crash when I was with a customer.
Anyways, one of the things it did not allow us to do was to track people who used inordinate amounts of energy for their residences. When we did come across such a person, it was nearly always out of shear luck and usually because the customer had contacted us in some manner about an issue. When we got such a case, the procedure was to pull their records for the last few months and send on to a special investigative divison in the company. Often these large expenditures meant that the party was either listing themselves as a residence when they should have been classified as a business, were having their lines tapped and their energy stolen, or had a grow op on their premises requiring vast amounts of energy useage.
So one ordinary summer's day, I received a call from one of said parties and putting it mildly, the guy was not happy:
Me: Thank you for calling XWZ, my name is allniter how can I help you?
SC: Yeah I wanna know why you guys jacked up my bill this month?
ME: Ok, I can certainly check into that for you. May I have your account number?
SC: It's xxx-xxxxx
Me: Ok let me see here. ( I read over his last month's charges, and saw it was one of those bills that was high enough to render it sent to our local fraud department for investigation. I then checked it against several of his previous bills)
Me: Well it looks like the amount of power you withdrew from our system this month was nearly triple that of three months ago.
SC: uh-uh no way, I don't use that much energy. You guys made a mistake.
Me: (thinking that it's sure possible since accidents happen) Well I can certainly schedule an appointment for someone to come out and check your meter if you think it's malfunctioning.
SC: No no, there's no need for that, you can just change it there from your computer and set this right.
Me: Well I could certainly change it here but I have to have reason to believe that the amount is wrong in the first place. That's why if we send a tech out, they can verify whether the amount is correct or not.
SC: Look here son, I spend a lot of money with you people and I want something done about this right now if you want to keep me as a customer.
Me: I understand you want a lower bill and if it's a problem with the meter we'll certainly change it out and adjust your bill, but without that proof there's no way we're going to be able to change anything at this time.
SC: (his voice steadily rising) I don't need no God-damn meter maid coming out here to tell me that me what I already know. You guys fucked up on my bill and I want something done about it Now. ( he had that "I am not getting off this phone until it's corrected" tone to him as well)
Me: I do see that your bill did take an unexpectedly high jump three months ago-
SC: (interrupting) See that's all the proof you need right there, open your eyes to it you dumb shit!
Me: Nevertheless I'm setting up the appointment for your "meter maid" (hoping to emasculate him a little by getting the thought into his head that he'll be serviced by a 5'4 flaming gay guy with a pink uniform and sparkly utility belt) to come out to your house and check to see if the refund is warranted.
SC: &%$#@ Get me your f**king supervisor on the phone, you've pissed off the wrong guy buddy and now you're gonna get it!
Me: He's just going to tell you the same thing you know. Do you really want to be told twice what you didn't want to hear the first time?
SC: You arrogant prick, I'll have your job for this you hear me.
Me: (thinking many have tried ) Let me know how that turns out for you sir. Hold for my supervisor..
With that, I calmly put down my headset and went over to inform my supervisor of the guy on hold. Bypassing some of my other more corporate-whipped managers I sought out my friend Mike who was one of the toughest guys we had. He loved dealing with SC's and putting them in their place. He once told me a guy had threatened to kill not just him but his entire family if he didn't get his service reconnected and his disconnection fee waived. Mike took it in good humor and hung up the phone laughing into the receiver. He then pulled the converstion from the tapes for safekeeping and wrote a note on the customer's account that suspended his service for life and listed the reasons why.
So I tell Mike about our Mr. Friendly on hold and the situation surrounding his complaint. Mike pulls up the account and after a minute of study, smirks and says to let him handle it. I return to my desk, inform the customer who I'd be transferring him to and connect it through. I also append a message to the account of the guy's threatening behavior for any future reps who should come across him, and sent a copy onto our fraud squad to check into it should the tech discover there's no problem with the meter.
Fast forward about two weeks and I'm sitting at my desk reviewing the account of someone I'd just hung up with. I get a call on my line:
Me: Hello?
Sup: Yeah it's me Mike. Hey do you remember a guy you spoke with earlier this month who was complaining about his high bill and you sent him through to me?
Me: (takes me all of about 2 seconds to remember) yeah I do, what about it?
Sup: Well check your email, I sent you a copy of the followup to what happened after I got off the phone with him.
Now Mike doesn't send me emails often about inside company stuff but I know when he does, it's only because the story is something really juicy. So I immediately put the brakes on what I'm doing and prepare to salivate over what he's sent me.
Apparently the guy, after a long and ugly conversation with Mike, finally agreed to allow a meter reader to come out to his home and check his equipment. When the tech got out there, the guy greeted him with suspicion and watched over his every move like a hawk, never letting him out of his sight. The tech later recorded the guy as having a very quick temper, lashing out repeatedly that he was taking too long and to "just fix the damn thing and get off my property" along with some other colorful remarks about our company. Luckily, the tech was a seasoned pro who took it all in stride, letting the guy vent without giving him an excuse to blow his stack any further. After his inspection, our tech told the guy that yeah, he was right and the meter was indeed broken. This seemed to calm the guy down considerably, while he internally switched himself over from the role of violent patriarch to the role of righteous defender of the weak, willing to stand up to a large company and bring them to heel. Somehow managing to catch a word in edgewise, the tech said he would need to return to base and get a new meter but that he would be back within the hour. This only pissed the guy off again, but with the memory of his recent victory still fresh in his mind, agreed to the delay. As the tech left, the guy couldn't resist a parting shot that if he wasn't back within the hour, he'd see to it he was fired. Happy to get out of there, the tech loaded up his tools and took off.
But... before the tech had even made it to the end of the block, he was calling his supervisor to explain that the problem wasn't with the meter. The meter was working perfectly and he'd just said what he did to get away from the guy without further provoking his already hostile temper. His supervisor quizzed him further about anything he might have seen that would explain the added energy output. The supervisor listened intently, hung up and immediately called corporate. The case was routed through to Mike, as he had handled the initial complaint for our department, and to someone in our fraud squad. The three discussed the situation and decided it best that they call the police.
The rest of what happened I got from a local newspaper's webpage article. I almost busted a gut when I read the punchline. essentially it read:
AP Jonestown, USA -
A local man was arrested today, charged with running a grow operation out of his house with intent to traffic and sell. According to local residents, the man was seen struggling with police after his arrest, pleading with them to come to his rescue and help rescue a patriot who was being framed.
Police confirmed that they'd received a tip on the man from a local power company. A technician who'd been dispatched to the man's home to check up on a complaint of faulty equipment, found that although there was nothing wrong with the man's meter, there was definitely something wrong with the air. Placing a call to his local dispatch, the call was quickly routed up through the company to someone in head office who took the action of calling police.
The technician reported smelling copious amounts of marijuana in the air while he was out there and that after a thorough check of the man's eletric meter, concluded the excess energy was being utilized by machinery in the house. With this information, police issued a raid on the property where the grow op was quickly discovered.
Sargent "Mc Kick Ass" told us "when we got out there, the smell of marijuana was so strong, I was surprised the guy wasn't keeling over from lack of oxygen."
Suffice it to say, I was very happy our justice system worked so well and fast. Kudos to the law!
Anyways, one of the things it did not allow us to do was to track people who used inordinate amounts of energy for their residences. When we did come across such a person, it was nearly always out of shear luck and usually because the customer had contacted us in some manner about an issue. When we got such a case, the procedure was to pull their records for the last few months and send on to a special investigative divison in the company. Often these large expenditures meant that the party was either listing themselves as a residence when they should have been classified as a business, were having their lines tapped and their energy stolen, or had a grow op on their premises requiring vast amounts of energy useage.
So one ordinary summer's day, I received a call from one of said parties and putting it mildly, the guy was not happy:
Me: Thank you for calling XWZ, my name is allniter how can I help you?
SC: Yeah I wanna know why you guys jacked up my bill this month?
ME: Ok, I can certainly check into that for you. May I have your account number?
SC: It's xxx-xxxxx
Me: Ok let me see here. ( I read over his last month's charges, and saw it was one of those bills that was high enough to render it sent to our local fraud department for investigation. I then checked it against several of his previous bills)
Me: Well it looks like the amount of power you withdrew from our system this month was nearly triple that of three months ago.
SC: uh-uh no way, I don't use that much energy. You guys made a mistake.
Me: (thinking that it's sure possible since accidents happen) Well I can certainly schedule an appointment for someone to come out and check your meter if you think it's malfunctioning.
SC: No no, there's no need for that, you can just change it there from your computer and set this right.
Me: Well I could certainly change it here but I have to have reason to believe that the amount is wrong in the first place. That's why if we send a tech out, they can verify whether the amount is correct or not.
SC: Look here son, I spend a lot of money with you people and I want something done about this right now if you want to keep me as a customer.
Me: I understand you want a lower bill and if it's a problem with the meter we'll certainly change it out and adjust your bill, but without that proof there's no way we're going to be able to change anything at this time.
SC: (his voice steadily rising) I don't need no God-damn meter maid coming out here to tell me that me what I already know. You guys fucked up on my bill and I want something done about it Now. ( he had that "I am not getting off this phone until it's corrected" tone to him as well)
Me: I do see that your bill did take an unexpectedly high jump three months ago-
SC: (interrupting) See that's all the proof you need right there, open your eyes to it you dumb shit!
Me: Nevertheless I'm setting up the appointment for your "meter maid" (hoping to emasculate him a little by getting the thought into his head that he'll be serviced by a 5'4 flaming gay guy with a pink uniform and sparkly utility belt) to come out to your house and check to see if the refund is warranted.
SC: &%$#@ Get me your f**king supervisor on the phone, you've pissed off the wrong guy buddy and now you're gonna get it!
Me: He's just going to tell you the same thing you know. Do you really want to be told twice what you didn't want to hear the first time?
SC: You arrogant prick, I'll have your job for this you hear me.
Me: (thinking many have tried ) Let me know how that turns out for you sir. Hold for my supervisor..
With that, I calmly put down my headset and went over to inform my supervisor of the guy on hold. Bypassing some of my other more corporate-whipped managers I sought out my friend Mike who was one of the toughest guys we had. He loved dealing with SC's and putting them in their place. He once told me a guy had threatened to kill not just him but his entire family if he didn't get his service reconnected and his disconnection fee waived. Mike took it in good humor and hung up the phone laughing into the receiver. He then pulled the converstion from the tapes for safekeeping and wrote a note on the customer's account that suspended his service for life and listed the reasons why.
So I tell Mike about our Mr. Friendly on hold and the situation surrounding his complaint. Mike pulls up the account and after a minute of study, smirks and says to let him handle it. I return to my desk, inform the customer who I'd be transferring him to and connect it through. I also append a message to the account of the guy's threatening behavior for any future reps who should come across him, and sent a copy onto our fraud squad to check into it should the tech discover there's no problem with the meter.
Fast forward about two weeks and I'm sitting at my desk reviewing the account of someone I'd just hung up with. I get a call on my line:
Me: Hello?
Sup: Yeah it's me Mike. Hey do you remember a guy you spoke with earlier this month who was complaining about his high bill and you sent him through to me?
Me: (takes me all of about 2 seconds to remember) yeah I do, what about it?
Sup: Well check your email, I sent you a copy of the followup to what happened after I got off the phone with him.
Now Mike doesn't send me emails often about inside company stuff but I know when he does, it's only because the story is something really juicy. So I immediately put the brakes on what I'm doing and prepare to salivate over what he's sent me.
Apparently the guy, after a long and ugly conversation with Mike, finally agreed to allow a meter reader to come out to his home and check his equipment. When the tech got out there, the guy greeted him with suspicion and watched over his every move like a hawk, never letting him out of his sight. The tech later recorded the guy as having a very quick temper, lashing out repeatedly that he was taking too long and to "just fix the damn thing and get off my property" along with some other colorful remarks about our company. Luckily, the tech was a seasoned pro who took it all in stride, letting the guy vent without giving him an excuse to blow his stack any further. After his inspection, our tech told the guy that yeah, he was right and the meter was indeed broken. This seemed to calm the guy down considerably, while he internally switched himself over from the role of violent patriarch to the role of righteous defender of the weak, willing to stand up to a large company and bring them to heel. Somehow managing to catch a word in edgewise, the tech said he would need to return to base and get a new meter but that he would be back within the hour. This only pissed the guy off again, but with the memory of his recent victory still fresh in his mind, agreed to the delay. As the tech left, the guy couldn't resist a parting shot that if he wasn't back within the hour, he'd see to it he was fired. Happy to get out of there, the tech loaded up his tools and took off.
But... before the tech had even made it to the end of the block, he was calling his supervisor to explain that the problem wasn't with the meter. The meter was working perfectly and he'd just said what he did to get away from the guy without further provoking his already hostile temper. His supervisor quizzed him further about anything he might have seen that would explain the added energy output. The supervisor listened intently, hung up and immediately called corporate. The case was routed through to Mike, as he had handled the initial complaint for our department, and to someone in our fraud squad. The three discussed the situation and decided it best that they call the police.
The rest of what happened I got from a local newspaper's webpage article. I almost busted a gut when I read the punchline. essentially it read:
AP Jonestown, USA -
A local man was arrested today, charged with running a grow operation out of his house with intent to traffic and sell. According to local residents, the man was seen struggling with police after his arrest, pleading with them to come to his rescue and help rescue a patriot who was being framed.
Police confirmed that they'd received a tip on the man from a local power company. A technician who'd been dispatched to the man's home to check up on a complaint of faulty equipment, found that although there was nothing wrong with the man's meter, there was definitely something wrong with the air. Placing a call to his local dispatch, the call was quickly routed up through the company to someone in head office who took the action of calling police.
The technician reported smelling copious amounts of marijuana in the air while he was out there and that after a thorough check of the man's eletric meter, concluded the excess energy was being utilized by machinery in the house. With this information, police issued a raid on the property where the grow op was quickly discovered.
Sargent "Mc Kick Ass" told us "when we got out there, the smell of marijuana was so strong, I was surprised the guy wasn't keeling over from lack of oxygen."
Suffice it to say, I was very happy our justice system worked so well and fast. Kudos to the law!
... Any minute now, he'll finish typing....
I've also busted about ten people defrauding the system by slightly changing the spelling of their name each time they move to avoid having their debts follow them. It's fun to have power
Comment