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

Okay so far...

It's the end of July and a quick update:

• It took us until March 2008 before we were able to catch up to our bills from 2007

We do scrutinize our bills now from Enmax every time. We've learnt that our bill print date is on the 25 - 28 of each month so we should receive it in the mail within the first week of the next month...

We are concerned though as it's usually the Fall season that their "servers" or "networks" seem to go down or have "issues" (as they put it) and then our bills stop coming. We'll keep an eye on it and let everyone know.

Some resolution?

September 19, 2007 – Shelly Wolfe called back and advised:

• Credit rating has been restored from 2 (Satisfactory) to 1 (Excellent)
• Does not affect Credit Bureau rating. Only time this happens is when the account is closed and Enmax is trying to collect any outstanding amounts
• Final Notice letter was sent out in error – the flag on accounts which had billing issues were lifted at the end of August and it was done system wide so ours was one of them. This generated the letter to be printed
• Confirmed that payment of $422.09 was received and our balance is $0.00
• Willing to put it all in writing and will send out to us when completed

Here we go again...

September 18, 2007:

• Bill from Calgary called back. He is in the Collections Centre
• Questions raised to him were:
• Why are we receiving a Final Notice when we didn’t receive any other letters?
• Bill advised that we would’ve gotten it on our prior bill at 30 days and the 60 days was for the April non-payment bill
• Advised him that we didn’t get an April bill and the issue was already escalated. As well, if the letter is for a 60 days in arrears, why did we receive it in September? 60 days from April is June. Letter was printed September 8 and was mailed on September 10, 2007
• Bill advised that he does not know what the problem is as it's a billing problem, not a collection problem
• Also advised him that we were experiencing issues with Enmax not billing us (even though we asked them many times over) and we were on a payment plan. Had he read the file completely as we had requested prior to contacting us, he would have known that we didn’t have a bill in April but still made a payment on May 1, 2007 for $300 after our phone conversation with Ed Isidro
• As well, with us not receiving continuous billing, we were not sure which month we were paying and what was in arrears or not; however, payment arrangements were made with no penalty or disconnect
• What does a credit rating of 2 mean? What are the rating numbers and its corresponding descriptions?
• Bill advised that our credit rating has been restored to “excellent” which is a 1 but did not answer our question of what does the rating numbers correspond to
• We would like to know if this has hit Toby’s credit bureau report but didn’t receive any answers
• What does the Status Code “A” mean?
• Bill advised that “A” means active
• Can we get this in writing that our credit rating has been changed back and we are caught up on our bills and will not be disconnected?
• Sent Maria Gonzaga, Rob Mackin and Kevin Brown an update email explaining current issues with Enmax. Also sent copy of Final Notice Letter in pdf format.
• Asked if someone can contact us to answer our questions we had posed to Bill as we did not receive any satisfactory answers from him. We would like to know in writing:
• Indicate that our credit rating has indeed been restored with Enmax and what this credit rating number and its corresponding title is
• Indicate that by no means has this credit rating been reported to the credit bureau under Toby's name and if it has, what actions will Enmax be pursuing to rectify this error
• Indicate that as of September 7, 2007, our balance is $0.00 (we have caught up) and that there will be no disconnect
• Kevin Brown replied via email and advised that he has forwarded the email to the Executive Vice President’s Office
• Shelly Wolfe (403-219-2077) from Enmax Customer Advocacy called to advise that she had received the email which was forwarded to her by Rob Mackin and Maria Gonzaga. Shelly will look into it and reply via email tomorrow (September 19, 2007) morning

Spoke too soon... Final Notice???

September 17, 2007:

• Received Final Notice Prior to Disconnection letter in mail
• Toby called Enmax and talked to Sabrina in Calgary to discuss
• Letter indicated that we are 60 days in arrears in our payments and last payment was made on July 31, 2007.
• Sabrina indicated the 60 days in arrears is on the basis that we didn’t make any payments in April 2007.
• Our records however indicated:
• April 24/07 – billing issue has already been escalated and we were in contact with Ed Isidro about why we haven’t received our April bill which was supposed to be printed on April 10, 2007
• Since January 2007, we have made payments:
  February 15, 2007 - $300
  March 22, 2007 - $400
  April – no payment as we were having issues of receiving bills and Ed Isidro was working on it
  May 1, 2007 - $300
  June 5, 2007 - $400
  July 30, 2007 - $400
  September 7, 2007 - $422.09 (full payment of bill as it caught us up to date).
• Asked that a manager call us back AFTER he/she reads our file
• Sabrina advised that a manager will contact him within 24-48 hours

All is well in billing land... for now

June – September 16, 2007:

• bills were received and no issues were noticed

Aah... customer service!

June 18, 2007:

• Kevin Brown followed-up to see if everything was resolved
• Advised him that all is well so far and thanked him for his assistance
• Kevin advised that if anything else is to come up we should contact him

Seeing a light at the end of the tunnel...

May 9, 2007:

• Maria called and faxed over spreadsheet with calculations
• Walked through the spreadsheet and calculations of GST, etc. and found an error on one of the bills and it will be corrected in next billing cycle
• Maria also set up monthly payments for us and will monitor our bills over the next couple of months to ensure that everything will go smoothly

Almost there...

May 8, 2007:

• Kevin Brown contacted via email to follow-up on progress of inquiry
• Advised him that it is ongoing
• Kevin will follow-up again at a later date

Much clearer...

May 3, 2007:

• Maria faxed detailed breakdown of GST charges on account and we went through it together.
  
• GST is calculated on a per line item and prior to any adjustments such as gas rebates
  
• The $6.36 charge was after all rebates were calculated from the December 22/06 – January 18/07 bill; however, GST is calculated based on the charges prior to adjustments of gas rebates so the GST shows as $34.04
  
• Maria did notice that we were charged twice on our latest bill (Bill date of April 27/07) in GST ($1.35) and other charges ($22.46). We should be receiving the bill sometime this week or next week
  
• Will have those credited back to our account so we should see a credit of $23.81 on our next bill. As of the bill date of April 27/07, the balance is $851.03 which includes the credit of penalty charges of the last bill ($6.93) and another $50 credit. The credit of $23.81 will show up in the next bill.
  
• Since we have made a payment of $300 on May 1, 2007, our bill should be $527.22 (which takes the $23.81) into consideration
  
• Maria has also put a note on the account that the balance of $827.22 (without our $300 payment) on a 6 month repayment plan which works out to be $137.87/month. We will still be required to pay the current month’s charges in addition to the $137.87. If we want to continue to make $300 payments on top of our current bill, we would pay off the balance faster but if need be, the minimum payment to “catch up” is $138 + current month’s bill charges
  
• Maria will follow-up in about a week to see if we have any other questions after we review the spreadsheet of the breakdown
  

Keeping us informed... finally - communication

May 2, 2007:

• Maria emailed to advise that she is still working on the GST portion of the bills and would rather touchbase on May 3, 2007. This should provide her with more time to review the reports. Emailed her back to advise her that it was fine.

Promises, promises

May 1, 2007:

• Waited to get a call back from Maria @ 11:00 am but no call was received
• Sent email to Maria and cc’d Rob & Kevin @ 12:30 pm
• Maria called at 12:40 pm and informed that the penalty has been removed. There was a correction to the system for penalty charges but our bill was printed prior to that so we were charged. It has been removed and going forward we shouldn’t be receiving any penalty charges. Still working on the GST issue. Advised that the GST is calculated by line item but it only takes into consideration the debit amounts and not the credit amounts. Maria has a meeting in the afternoon to discuss further and will call back either in the afternoon or first thing on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 morning
• Advised Maria that we’ll be making a payment of $300 of the $575.66 bill today. Going forward we will be making $300 payments monthly until we are all caught up in the billing
• Maria also advised that there will probably be another $50 credit to the account for the next bill to thank us for our patience while they sort through the billing system. Also advised that she will be monitoring our account for the next couple of months
  

Our issues are finally being looked at...

April 27, 2007:

• On a conference call with Rob Mackin (Manager, Service Provider Contracts) and Maria Gonzaga (Supervisor, Customer Advocacy Team) and explained issues of GST billing error, late penalty fees applied, and our frustration of how we have to explain our story again every time we call in as well as the number of occurrences (3 in total)
• 
  Maria looked into the system and noted that although we haven’t received bills, we have been making payments so unsure why we’re being charged late penalty fees. Also advised that we shouldn’t be as it’s in the system that we weren’t being penalized for their billing problems. Maria acknowledged that we do have a credit balance on our account
• 
  Rob noted that perhaps the GST was a roll-up of the past few months so it doesn’t quite add up. Explained to him that this is an issue dating back to Dec 22/06 and Maria will also look into it
  
• Rob advised that they have been having many issues with the billing system and will hopefully have them all resolved soon. In the interim, Rob will be keeping track of our bills for the next 2 – 3 months to ensure that it is being done up correctly
• 
  Maria provided her direct phone number (403-769-6817) so that we can contact her for future issues. We have also been provided with Rob Mackin, Kevin Brown and now Maria Gonzaga’s email addresses
• 
  Maria advised that she will look into the GST issues along with the penalty fees and call back on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 @ 11:00 am to follow-up/touchbase
• 
  Advised Rob & Maria that there’s now another employee at work who hasn’t received his bill for 1 month now so they’ll also look into that

Incompetence still reins...

April 25, 2007:

• Still haven't bill via fax as promised by Ed's phone conversation on April 24 and the bill that was promised to be sent via fax by Mike was never received either (that's twice that a bill was promised & was never received in a span of 2 days)
• Called Enmax back using Ed's direct line and got a general voicemail box instead. Left message for Ed to contact us back on the cell. Currently waiting for a callback
• Ed advised that he has refaxed it for the 3rd time and we received faxed bill at 10:50 am
• Noticed that they have credited the account $50 as per phone conversation on April 5, 2007; however, there is a penalty for late payment charge of $6.93 although the account has been overpaid and there is a $136.77 CR on the account. There was suppose to be a “no penalty charge” notice placed on the account as promised many times prior
  
• Looked at bill in more detail and noticed that the tax on the Electricity is calculated at 6% but Natural Gas is charged at a different rate. Natural gas tax should be at 6% which would be $34.87 but we were charged $42.05 which is higher than 7%
  
• Kevin Brown called back to follow-up to see if we received our bill and we advised him that after 3 tries to get it faxed, we finally did receive it but with errors
  
• Advised Kevin of the penalty charge and the tax error. Also advised him that Ed provided us with a “direct” phone number but when we call it, it appears to be a general mailbox rather than his “direct” voicemail
  
• Kevin will escalate it to Rob Mackin and will have Rob Mackin contact us directly to go through the bill in detail
  
• Rob Mackin contacted us via email to find a convenient time for him to contact us to discuss the bill issues. Will let him know on April 26, 2007 after detailed review of bill
  
• Upon returning home, the original Enmax bill for the cycle from January 23 – April 10, 2007 arrived in the mail with a form letter from Andrea Oldroyd (Manager, Back Office Billing Operations) and then a copy of the Enmax bill for the same cycle period with a letter from Ed Isidro dated April 20, 2007
  
• Looking back on our bills we noted the following tax errors:
  

1. Cycle from January 23 – April 10, 2007:

• Electricity tax is correct
  
• Natural gas tax is incorrect: Enmax charged $42.05 but 6% is $34.87 and 7% is $40.68
  

2. Cycle from January 18 – January 23, 2007:

• Electricity tax is correct
  
• Natural gas tax is incorrect: Enmax charged $11.54 but 6% is $7.74 and 7% is $9.03
  

3. Cycle December 22, 2006 – January 18, 2007:

• Electricity tax is correct
  
• Natural gas tax is incorrect: Enmax charged $34.04 but 6% is $0.38 and 7% is $0.45. Note that the total amount of natural gas at this time was $6.36 but tax on it was $34.04
  

4. Cycle from September 29 – December 22, 2006:

• Electricity tax is correct
  
• Natural gas tax is incorrect: Enmax charged $41.28 but 6% is $38.46 and 7% is $44.87
  
  

Escalation does work!

April 24, 2007:

• Ed Isidro from Enmax called back to see if we’ve received our bill and we advised him that we haven’t received the bill that was printed on April 10. He will refax it to 441-7141. (Aside: It appears that Mike was trying to fax our home phone number while I was on the phone with Ed). Ed also advised that he had sent out a bill breakdown over the weekend to show us the breakdown for electricity for time period January 12 – March 14, 2007 and gas for time period January 4 – March 7, 2007. Ed also confirmed the amount is $575.66 which is due on May 3, 2007; however, we have a no penalty and no disconnection notice on our account and we can make payment arrangements if required.
• Ed also advised that he had received the letter from us detailing the events of our issues from our sign on date of August 2005. It was forwarded to him through Kevin Brown who had escalated it Rob Mackin and then to Jody Krerickshank. We confirmed that our address is correct and Ed noted that it was incorrect at one point.
• After explaining our frustration about waiting on the phone for a customer rep and then being transferred before having to wait for days before we get one issue addressed, Ed provided us with a direct phone number (403-219-2077) where we can reach him going forward.
• Acknowledged that Enmax is having billing issues and they are working to resolve it. Ed also advised that he can’t guarantee it won’t happen again but now we can call him directly

April 23/07 & haven't received reprint of bill from April 10/07

April 23, 2007:

• Still have not received the bill that was supposedly been printed on April 10, 2007 and mailed out. It has been 13 days since the bill was “printed” as indicated by Ed
  
• Contacted Enmax and talked to Mike on April 23, 2007 at 8:43 pm. Mike verified that the bill was sent on April 10 to the correct address but cannot explain why we haven’t received the bill. Mike input a request to have bill faxed to 441-7141. Mike informed there are no other solutions to track our bill and offered E-billing which we specified that we do not wish to be on e-billing as we don’t even receive our monthly bill prints consistently now. What difference would it make online? Mike also verified that there is a “no penalty” setting on our account; therefore, we can take as long to pay as we wish without penalty charges
• Also sent Kevin Brown @ Enmax an email asking for a status update on our inquiry of April 5/07 as we haven't had a reply

Reprint of 3 month's worth of bills was printed April 10/07

April 19, 2007:

• We didn’t receive any calls until April 19, 2007 at 2:03 pm which Ed (on behalf of Blair) left a voicemail indicating that the bill was printed on April 10, 2007 – it has been 9 days after the bill print that we received this voicemail. The amount is $575.66 and is due on May 3, 2007