Still waiting...

March 13, 2009:

Still waiting for someone from Enmax to call us back to provide us with an explanation. In the interim, we had received a comment from our blog by an anonymous person:

"Stop whining and pay your bill, I work in the customer service industry and people like you are the bane of our existence, no matter what we do, you always have another excuse to whine, sometimes problems happen, and we are the ones who are first to apologize, your account number and billing schedule changing really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, pay your bill and shut up. "

So, we will take a moment here to respond to this comment:

Firstly, if you had read the blogs carefully, you would notice that we would pay our bills if we could receive them. That is the original problem - we didn't get our bills and when we had contacted Enmax about this, they had no idea why nor did they do anything to help us. Where is the customer service in this? Understanding that problems do arise in any industry but in a customer oriented industry, wouldn't it be wise that the company advise the customer before it escalates instead of just saying "I don't know" and do nothing?

Secondly, we are not whining but in fact, stating the issue (had you actually read the blog). We are also in the customer service industry and to have a CSR: pass you off; get irrate at you for asking where your bill is; provide excuses rather than try and actually find the answer; provide contradictory information or no information at all; pass the buck "it's the printers, it's the bank, etc."; not return phone calls, etc. This is not what we would consider as customer service. And, we have yet to receive any apologies for any of the issues we have been experiencing.

Thirdly, if you are educated in the utilities industry at all, you would realize that they must be accountable for what they do. In other words, they need to be accountable for their actions to the government. If Enmax doesn't provide the customer with the information they require (ie. the bill, the correct account number), they cannot penalize the customer for not paying the bill because the customer might be paying to an old account number which was not correctly transferred. That being said, it is the responsibility of Enmax to make sure their systems can apply payments from an old account number to the new one - not the bank.

Fourthly, an account number and billing cycle change is a HUGE problem if the customer is not advised. If you actually look at the bigger picture than what's in your head, you would recognize this. For example, if your bank changed your account number and didn't notify you and all your auto-payments for your bills got rejected (the dealership couldn't take your monthly car payment and sends you to collections or repossess your vehicle) or your tax refund never got to you because the government wasn't aware of your account number change, would it matter to you? If you were on a fixed income or pension because you're a senior or in the lower-income bracket and you only got paid once on the 5th of the month but you need to have your bills paid by the 1st of the month or else you have no power or electricity, would it matter?

So, before you write a comment about how we should pay our bills, you need to learn to read the full blog, understand the utilities industry, the billing industry, the banking industry (in which by the way, we are very educated in), look at the bigger picture of how many people this actually affects (how socially responsible is a company when they tell the UCA that it only affects about 300 people when they change ALL the account numbers? We doubt Enmax only has 300 customers). Perhaps you need to look at the "grand scheme of things" before you accuse others of whining when all they had wanted was their bill and to have it be accurate so they could pay it, and to have answers to their questions so that they are aware of what's going on so that future payments of their bills will actually get credited to their accounts.

Still waiting for a manager to call back

March 12, 2009:

• Called back to find out why a manager has yet to contact us to explain to us why we weren't notified of our account number change nor were we notified of the changes in our billing cycle
• Talked to Badur @ 10:50 am and was advised that they had informed the bank on our behalf and we asked them why were we not notified of this account change. No response.
• Badur advised that we would be back to our "regular" billing cycle in April which would mean that our bill will be shifted back to being printed on the 28th of each month instead of the current change of the 3rd of each month
• Asked again about why we were not notified and Badur advised that they couldn't inform the customers in time due to the system upgrades, etc.
• Pointed out that a system upgrade and billing cycle changes would have been planned and not something that is done within a week, especially if they had notified the UCA in early February
• Asked who made the decision to not inform the customers of the account number change or the billing cycle change. No response
• Asked why we weren't called back by a manager within the promised 24 hours. No response but just offerred to help (which he didn't as he didn't respond to our questions)
• Had to ask for our new account number as agent didn't offer it. Ask to be transferred to a supervisor
• Was on hold for 5 minutes before speaking to Daryl @ 11:04 am
• Daryl advised that the banks were notified and this is suppose to go on indefinitely (the banks would be the ones responsible for transferring our payments from our old account numbers to the new ones - not Enmax)
• According to Daryl, there will be a notice sent out sometime in March or early April. The notice was delayed, possibly due to some decisions "higher up"
• Daryl informed us that the billing date has now been changed to the 3rd
• Advised Daryl that Badur told us that our bill cycle would be back to the 28th instead of the 3rd and Daryl's response was that this is impossible because of regulation. Two different answers for one question...
• Daryl was unsure why we weren't called back within the 24 hours and concluded that the person who was suppose to call back got busy but someone will call us back

UCA provided more info than Enmax

March 12, 2009 - Wrote the UCA (the "Commission") to ask them if a utility company can shift your billing cycle because of an upgrade to their systems or change your account number without notification?

• Spoke with a representative and was advised that yes, they can shift the billing cycle to better align with the meter reading dates and they can change your account number without notification if they had taken the precautions to notify the affected groups (in this case, Enmax notified the banks of the change)
• Pointed out that although Enmax may have advised the bank, if the information doesn't get trickled down to the branch level, no one will be the wiser. As well, advised him that like Canada Post, the banks will not be transferring funds from an old account number to a new account number on behalf of a vendor forever. They will do this as a courtesy for about 6 months, like Canada Post and after this timeframe, they will just pay to whatever account number that is on the client's profile. Problem arises when the client was not notified that their account number has changed so that they can update with their banks, accountants, Epost, auto-payment, or whatever way the customer pays
• Representative advised that Enmax did do its "due diligence" by advising the Commission that they were planning this before the change was implemented and that it would only affect a small handful of people (approximately 300) so that's why they weren't going to advise people.
• Asked representative why did the CSR advised that they had advertised this on their website (https://www.enmax.com/Energy/Res/My+Account/AccountNumberChange.htm) or on the IVR system as a blanket message to all customers if this is suppose to only affect a "handfull" of customers? If they had advertised this as blanket messages, then why couldn't they have placed it in the Special Messages box directly on their bill (as not everyone will sit and check out their utility company's website daily or call the IVR system just because)?
• Representative was not aware that they had done blanket advertising as Enmax had only advised the UCA that it would only affect a small group of people so he will look into it further and get back to us
• Checked the Enmax website and this is what was on there:

Why has my account number changed? We’ve recently upgraded our customer care system. As a result you will find a new 9-digit account number that replaces your current 12- or 13-digit account number on your bill.

• This begs the question, how does changing from a 12 or 13 digit account number to 9 digits only affect a "handfull" of people so that's why Enmax didn't think it was necessary to advise the customer with an insert or something noted in the "Special Messages" box???

Billing issues again???

So we've been trucking along for the last year, 7 months and 14 days with no issues. We've been receiving our bills as they had promised... or so we thought... here's the latest update:

March 11, 2009 - Called ENMAX @ 310-2010 at about 7:30 am and talked to Quang from the Calgary Call Centre to ask him about our bill as we haven't received it yet

• Advised Quang that our bill usually gets printed on the 28th of each month so we usually receive it the first week of the following month; however, this didn't happen for this month
• Quang advised that they had upgraded their billing system so all clients' bill cycle has been shifted by 5 days which means our bill will now be printed on the 3rd of each month going forward. Advised our bill was printed on the 3rd and was sent out on the 4th so we should get it this week (which we received in the afternoon of March 11/09)
• Asked Quang about notification of bill cycle change & account number change because while on hold, the IVR lady had advised that ENMAX had also changed the account numbers and they had notified the banks
• Quang confirmed that they did change the account numbers because of the billing cycle shifts & the upgrade to the billing system
• Asked him why we weren't notified of this change and his answer was "It was mentioned on our website but the powers that be thought it wouldn't be important to notify the customer on the bill because the banks were notified so it wouldn't matter as you're still able to pay your bill with your old account number. I was able to pull up your account info using your old account number."
• We pointed out that they should be able to pull up our account info using our old account number as it's their internal system. Asked him where is the level of customer service if you couldn't write a one line on your bill or have an insert to notify the customer of the changes? As well, what is the purpose of having a Special Messages section on the bill if it not utilized?
• Quang rebutted with "If your payment is still going through at the bank under your old account number, why does it matter that you would need to know that your account number on the bill has changed?"
• Requested to speak with a manager and was told that a manager would call back within 24 hours and they would reiterate the same thing he said
• Waiting for a manager to call back