So many of my family members are dealing with this. And they’ve found that the company has made opting out of auto pay damn near impossible. The place where it used to be on the site has changed, calling results in getting disconnected, when they finally found it on the site, it “times out” when they try to cancel….its just a fucking mess.
We got lucky. I’m like 80% sure we have a rate cap because I haven’t seen it spike and I’ve been watching it fairly closely. But I’ve got aunts, geandparents, friends who have had their entire paycheck taken for electric bills when they barely had power for 3 hours over the course of 5 days. Money they needed to replace food gone bad, to fix water damage, to make car repairs, all gone to a bill that shouldn’t even exist because they didn’t even have power for 3 days.
Friendly tip from a long-time bank employee… If your money is on autopay directly from your account# or card, you can put a STOP PAYMENT on that shit! But do it at least 3 days before it is due to be pulled from your account. There may be a $20-30 fee for it, but that is much better than a power company trying to pull hundreds from your account and overdrafting you.
Also, if they already pulled a ridiculous amount of money from you… if you believe that the charges are for power that you did not use you likely can file a dispute with your bank. If you lost power tell them about that and say that services were not received, or if there are sudden new previously not disclosed fees you can state that the price is different than disclosed. Those sorts of reasons should keep banking systems from messing with the account itself, as it would do for a fraud claim. Filing a dispute against your power company might not get you your money back, but it MAY. It may also allow the bank to waive a stop payment fee if you fear a second round of hiked rates. Just ask the banker about that before filing the stop paymen as some systems will ONLY waive the fee if it’s done DURING the dispute process….
But! You have to remember that the stop payment is there until YOU remove it. While some banks may remove them after 6 months, or 1-5 years…. it will be your responsibility to remember to reestablish your payment relationship with the power company, and you’ll also then need to let your bank about it when you want to start allowing payments to process again so they can remove the block.
And for those worried that it might somehow look shady: No, the banker will NOT think you’re trying to pull a fast one. The banker is 10000% likely to be on your side when you explain the situation and ask them questions.
If this information helps even one person then I’ll consider it a wonderful use of my time to type it out and post it. Y’all stay STRONG!!!
