Friday, October 15, 2010

Update....

It's been awhile since we've updated this blog but thought we'd just close the loop. :) Enmax finally did sort out the issues and we have been receiving our bills on a regular monthly basis and have had no issues to date.

To answer a few items from people who have posted comments:
  1. Yes, we as a consumer are liable to pay our bills on time, etc which we have. Our original issue is that we didn't get a bill and when we inquired about it, no one had an answer nor were they able to provide us with an amount to pay. As a result, blame shouldn't be placed on the consumer who was proactive in tracking down their bill and be responsible and pay the bill. They had originally setup our account wrong and sent it to an empty lot because the person who input the account information got our address wrong; however, they had 4 different phone numbers to contact us at and this would've resolved the issue but we didn't get a call from anyone. To say that a bill is considered delivered to a customer or mailed to a customer and therefore, the customer now owes the company is interesting considering that the company sent it to an empty lot and then ended up getting a return to sender mail back but failed to find other routes to notify the customer. As a consumer who took the responsibility first and stepped up (we could've just done nothing) and made the initial call and even asked how much so we could pay it seems to have been lost on some readers. Enmax acknowledged that they had received the return to sender bills but no one there took accountability to call to verify address information which they also acknowledged was their own process failing.
  2. There are great customer service reps out there and we commend them on their work as it's hard to deal with customers on a daily basis; however, to point out that we had been irrate or yelling or swearing at them is not fair as we did none of them. Were we frustrated? Absolutely! We had tried and worked with the reps and the ones who escalated it for us did what is expected - their job. Once escalated however, the service level continued to be low (no return phone calls as they had committed to, no follow-up, etc). Is this fair on a consumer who saw that they didn't have a bill and wanted to be responsible? No. The consumer is only trying to do their part by being responsible and paying their bill but when a retailer is not stepping up, that shouldn't be blamed on the consumer. How would someone feel if they were promised that the house they had purchased or built would be ready in a certain time and then it's 6 months later and no response? Should the consumer be at fault or blame for trying to PAY someone else? This doesn't make sense. The amount of effort a consumer is putting in so that in the end, they are paying someone else isn't even recognized which is very sad. We weren't trying to run away from paying bills. We are responsible, mature adults who actually recognized that we didn't get our bills so we took the first step in trying to rectify the situation and to have the company keep slamming doors in our face is unacceptable, especially if the monies owed is going to the company in the end.
  3. Other retailers - sure we could go to other retailers but in the end, consumers will go to whomever provides the best price and not necessarily the best service. Many of us will go to a place because it has the best price (we all worked hard to earn our money so shouldn't we be wise about where we spend it?). If there are 2 car dealerships offering the same car but one is offering it at a lower price, which one would you go to? We were with AES before but they couldn't compete with Enmax so that's why we switched. We have also heard horror stories about AES which basically mirrors ours so it's an industry issue which needs to be looked at all around.
  4. Regulated body - as a regulated body, Enmax didn't even notify UCA of account number changes and this is what a regulated body is supposed to do so is it UCA's fault? Probably not. Is it not a socially responsible thing to do to notify the governing body of what a regulated company is going to do if that's what the agreement is? So should Enmax not be looking within their own company and processes to seek areas of improvement instead of pushing that responsibility and accountability onto the customer who has no control over their business processes?
  5. Billing - if the company has the ability to put "spam" in the same envelope as the bill, the company can put a note to indicate that the account number has changed or the billing cycle may have moved and to check their bill to verify that all is correct, etc. There are no excuses for a company to say they didn't have a way or the only way was on their website if they have the capability of "spamming."

When the company does finally step up and do something, they made a commitment to put our account to indicate that there shouldn't be late-charges applied for their errors which was greatly appreciated but when we called back to let them know that it was still applied, there was little effort on their end to correct it. So to say that we were just being "sensitive" is a bit overstated considering that the company made the commitment to fix it as a way of "good faith" but failed in the process in the end. And to add further insult to injury, we had to go through the whole story all over again when it was clearly stated in our file, etc. That is not fair to the consumer who was patient and did what they could to help in resolving the issues. Seems that some people would rather put the blame elsewhere (in this case - company to consumer) rather than review their own processes within.

We are not the only ones with issues with Enmax or any other retailers (utility or otherwise) out there. This blog was originally created to bring awareness to the issue which is that big companies should really look and review their processes, etc. before using the responsible consumer as a scapegoat. We appreciate all comments and haven't blocked any as everyone is entitled to their opinions which, one who has any common sense would realize that we aren't the bad ones here who didn't want to pay their bills but we were just simply trying to get our bills and correct a billing issue.

To all who still have billing issues, etc. with Enmax, we empathize with you. We really hope that the more people who bring this to light that the big companies may one day stop kicking the little guy around for being responsible and look within their own companies for areas to improve on instead of just blaming the consumer or utilizing everyone else as a scapegoat.