Posted on 03/12/2022 6:17:40 AM PST by 4Runner
Below is the text of a complaint we filed today with the Florida Public Service Commission:
This electric utility contacted us a month ago and informed us that power usage in our residence had increased over the past 12 months (How--and Why? We are a couple in our 70's and have lived in this house for 38 years. Nothing has changed. If anything, we have been upgrading to more energy efficient appliances as needed!)
At the time of the "notice", our bill under TECO's "averaging" program was a whopping $164.00 per month. If we were ever a day late in paying this bill we immediately received a threatening postcard warning us our service would be shut off if we did not immediately pay the bill.
We have a perfect payment record with TECO going back 38 years in this residence. So this month the TECO bill increased from $164 to an unbelievable $200.00. This, without so much as a single public or governmental hearing to justify this degree of a raise in electrical usage and cost. Thirty-six dollars.
In October of 2021 a close relative of ours and a resident of Pinellas County died. For estate purposes, the family has been keeping up assessment and utility payments at the deceased relatives' condo in Tarpon Springs. It is 1200 square feet while our residence is 1550 sq ft.
The bills we are getting from Duke Energy are around $46.00 a month while the condo is unoccupied. The last month it was occupied the bill was for $87.55. This has been an eye-opening experience for us and has made us realize the extent of the corruption in Hillsborough County and the political games being played at the expense of the residents who are responsible and pay their bills.
Clearly what is going on in Hillsborough County is extreme dereliction of duty on the part of the County government. We know full well why our electric bill has become a mortgage payment. It is because we are having to pay for the residents in this county who do not pay their bills but who will never be threatened with service disruption because the corporatist socialist TECO is fearful of rioting and civil disorder if it were ever to terminate service to this particular population group which is now over one million statewide due to massive exodus over the past several years from Haiti and Puerto Rico.
The same ones who drive without insurance and get away with it because law enforcement is now non-existent in Hillsborough thanks to Sheriff DeBartolo. (No that's his real name not the phony "Chronister" moniker.) We are being forced to pay for the people who don't.
Two hundred dollars a month is an absolute outrage for electricity for two people over the age of 70. In a 1550 sq ft dwelling. Hillsborough is the worst county in the State of Florida. We will be contacting Governor DeSantis' office on this matter and demanding an investigation because we know the PSC are nothing but TECO's "rubber stamp"
Go on. Tell us how our two-hundred-dollar-a- month electric bill is justified. In corporate-speak. Go ahead.
Just how f'n stupid do you think we are?
“Two hundred dollars a month is an absolute outrage for electricity for two people over the age of 70.”
This is what happens to people when they don’t have kids with half a brain.
I agree
All in the name of the "One World Government".
Our own government is treating us like saps.! Maybe we really are saps.. :(
Comparing 2 different residences doesn’t help either. The unoccupied condo may be insulated on 5 surfaces by other condos while their residence might be a single family house. Too many unknown variables. We doubled our sq. footage but halved our electric usage when we built our new house. We didn’t even go with top-of-the-line energy saving items.
It sounds like a faulty meter. Have them come out and physically check the meter. We have water meters like that and two things contribute to high water bills, a leak or a bad meter. If it is the meter, they adjust the bill.
It amazes me how many FReepers on this thread have tried to twist the facts or over-complicate to make it seem as though TECO and Hillsborough County are justified in overcharging homeowners to cover for the cost of hundreds of thousands of immigrant apartment dwellers who have the political clout to avoid payment for services and who are bleeding the county services and TECO completely dry in every way they can. Then these FReepers infer the complainant doesn't know what he's talking about.
You all should see what the ER's in our local Tampa hospitals look like. Mobs and hordes of non-English speaking foreign nationals with three and four children each overloading our capability to deal with disease on a rational community basis. Hospitals with daunting security procedures that make airport TSA look like a walk in the park. Hospitals on daily "bypass status" which means they cannot accept any more patients.
Florida has had over the past three years practically the entire population of Puerto Rico and Haiti dumped on it with absolute silence from the media on this fact. The negative ill effects this has had on our schools, hospitals, medical practices, housing and food supplies as well as the onslaught of inexperienced uninsured drivers on our streets is incalculable.
Here in Alachua County we have the highest rates in FL, I believe. Our service is with GRU (name looks like a Russian spy service, but it’s Gainesville Regional Utilities). The city owns GRU, so the leftists who run local government use it as a cash cow for their schemes. They also signed a contract to get a biomass plant that was a ripoff. Now that gas prices are soaring we’re getting whacked with that too.
Our meters are state of the art RF-controlled devices which do not require the services of meter readers. Stop making excuses for governmental and corporate programs that provide services to illegals then bill its paying US customers for the cost of those giveaway programs. Fear by those in power and control of civil unrest and rioting has been the ace in the hole for the hordes who now come here and demand everything for free and get it. At your and my expense.
same here
Stop being stubborn.
Our water meters are the same thing! But they do malfunction like a bad chip sending a bad signal.
If you do not want them to check it out, well that’s your own problem.
We have Duke Energy for our 2,150 sq. ft. home. Heating is via natural gas. Don’t use Teco. Our average elect bill is $110.
I recall that among elect utilities in the SE USA, Duke charges the most.
I also recall a letter from Duke around a year ago that we were going to pay more to fund a (wasteful) ‘effing solar farm in our county (Gulf). That really pissed me off. Rate-payers had no say in this Green nonsense.
Last gas bill was almost double the previous record high. Partly because they read the meter every other month, and the December bill based on estimate was probably much lower than it should have been, so January bill included some used in December. Still way high though - it wasn’t all that cold here.
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