Wednesday, January 11, 2006

AmerenIP can KISS MY ASS

So yeah, I am pretty postal over AmerenIP.

Once upon a time there was Illinois Power. And when it was good, it was very good, and when it was bad, it was VERY VERY VERY Bad.

Then Ameren came along and purchased Illinois Power, and together they made a demon child hell spawn known to the peasants as AmerenIP.

Illinois Power had this wonderful thing called a Levelized Payment Plan in which they spread your high high gas bills out over several months, allowing you to pay a fixed payment amount each month, which was higher than usual in the summer to make up for the lower than usual payment they allowed you to make thru-out (new spelling) the winter.

When AmerenIP was born, it was an evil evil little thing, with horns and hooves. It decided that the Illinois Power Levelized plan was too consumer friendly. It MUST be destroyed! So AmerenIP started their own little plan, called the Budget Payment Plan. And It was crap. They decided that you would get a budget payment amount, every month, but they would have 1 evil month where they would bring all the charges that you hadn't yet covered on your budget plan, and make them all due in one month.

Then when they sat down and thought, "hmm, which month would be the bestest month to make people pay this extra amount?" they decided that it would be DECEMBER! Happy Holidays and Happy High Heat Bills! Yeah for December! The perfect choice.

Then they determined that for that month when they brought the balance forward, they would ALSO take you OFF the levelized payment plan, making you pay your ACTUAL bill that month, PLUS the added remains of the budget/levelized plan. What better month than December!?

Let's review.

1. New company
2. New Bills that are harder than hell to read and understand.
3. New Terminology. New names. More confusion.
4. Make you pay budget plan remnants in one lump sum.
5. Make that Lump Sum due in DECEMBER!
6. Make you also PAY YOUR ENTIRE bill that month, without a levelized amount.

So that gets me a $339.00 bill
WHOO-HOO!

Problem is that I schedule all my bills. SO I scheduled my regular December levelized payment amount and never even NOTICED that the bill they were sending me was for MORE MONEY otherwise I probably would have blown a gasket in December and right around the Christmas Cash Crunch.

But this month, when my bill comes and it is WAYY WAYYY too much money, I start to worry, and I look back and see the evil that they have created!

Why not choose to do this in JULY when my regular bill would be just $88 and I could easily afford to tack on an extra $32 in levelized $$ that I hadn't paid yet through the plan? Oh no. DECEMBER sounds much better (#*!*&#%^#), because my unlevelized bill would be close to $300, plus the $32, plus on top of that I would want to celebrate a Godly Holiday like CHRISTMAS and therefore the devil hooved and horned AmerenIP could wave their forked tongues and tails in my direction and say WE ARE THE ALL POWERFUL AMERENIP, thereby ruining the Christmahannakwanzaa in the eyes of children and parents everywhere.

Isn't there a place on the internet where we the people can rise up against our utility companies? I need to write a letter.

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3 comments:

IzzyMom said...

Yeah, we have that levelized billing scam, too. Amerinip, huh? Sounds dirty *snicker*

nubian said...

yeah fuck amerin--
my bills are like 200 bucks a month, just for heat---i dont even use the heater
i'd rather just sit in my cold cold room than give them my money...

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