LETTER ONTARIO ENERGY BOARD

May 15, 2010

OntarioEnergy Board
P.O. Box2319
2300 Yonge St., 27th Floor
Toronto, ON M4P 1E4

Dear Board;

I am complaining about my treatment by Hydro One as it increasingly became clear what they are doing is policy and affects every Ontario customer who moves, and this policy is knowingly fraudulent and practiced against those least able to battle against their monopoly.

And their greed knows no bounds. Not only must customers pay for fictitious energy that drops off their lines, separate and ungoverned Delivery plus Regulatory charges much higher than the energy itself and endless Debt Retirement charges that carry an equal amount of GST, but they sneakily charge the tenant for weeks of service when they know the residence was unoccupied.

I phoned May 10/10 to ask for correction to my new billing, they indicated Feb. 1st as my move-in date when they had service for me at my previous address both in Bobcaygeon, up to Feb. 12. (In fact, I had moved Feb. 14 but they don’t work weekends or on the Family Holiday of Feb.15 so they informed me the final reading would be Feb.12. I made those arrangements a month in advance. When I inspected the new residence at about Feb.5 I found a Hydro letter crammed into the doorknob that said the power would be shut off in the next few days if they did not hear from me and I’d have to pay a hefty start-up charge to turn it back on. I phoned to check again that Hydro was aware of my previous arrangements and was assured they did.) So I expected the bill to be corrected.

But no! After going through the logic of what was wrong with the bill with the male operator/agent on May 10 with no result, he tells me a Supervisor will call in a few days after their Investigation.

On May 12 about 5 p.m. a female ‘supervisor’ phoned and once again I explained their records show where I moved from and when, and she ignores this explanation to say, “What you have to do is . . .” You know when you hear this that all fault has been heaped onto your shoulders, valid or not, usually not.

What I had to do was “petition” my landlord to take responsibility for the charges on by bill. I asked, “How does this become my problem? Surely Hydro should be asking the landlord for this, not tacking it onto my bill without explanation.” I was told my landlord had “refused responsibility”, so I must work it out with them,

We went back and forth with this several times with me urging them to consult their records to see I couldn’t possibly have used energy here when my lease began Feb. 14 and I was not here. This is not mine. And she slammed down the phone mid-sentence.

In a subsequent conversation with my landlord I discovered no attempt was made by Hydro regarding this subject with them.

I saw then this is nothing more than a fraudulent attempt to erroneously charge for idle time to those least able to pay or complain.

I urge you to deny their rate raise and insist instead they balance their enormous budget in a legal and businesslike manner.

Sincerely
C. Neil

cc The Promoter, Hydro One