In used to live in a multi-unit apartment building and my gas company accidentally began billing me for my neighbors gas useage when they moved in. This was a result of their negligence in labeling their meters correctly, and properly noting the apartment designations in their billing system. When they discovered the error, they closed my old account (the account I originally applied for and authorized), and without contacting me opened a new account under my name, and with my social. The did this "on my behalf" and to "prevent service interruption", but again, an employee of the gas company opened an account in my name, "for me", without my knowledge, consent, or approval. From the time this happened, things were never accurate, the dates were wrong, the usage was higher than I'd ever use, etc. I questioned and disputer this from the get-go, but never was provided documentary evidence of what was going on and why. Questions were never answered, about where credits and payments on my old account went, and I'm only being told, "It's accurate, and this is what you owe". The account now sits on my credit report, closed, but hideously delinquent. My bottom line questions are: 1. Can they legally report this account, being that I personally did not request or authorize. 2. Am I legally obligated to pay for services I did not specifically request? Being that this second account was opened by the gas company "as a favor to me"? Any thoughts, references, case law, etc. would be greatly appreciated...
If you used the gas, you owe the payments for it. If the delinquency results from their failure to account for the billing screwup and produce a verifiable bill your position is that it was not delinquent until you had a chance to review and verify a correct bill. they are doing you no favors by screwing up your bills and failing to produce a complete account of what you owe that you can verify. When dealing with regulated utilities, and you are having problems, contact and file a complaint with your state public utilities commission. They may be able to get the matter reviewed and responded to thru a different channel than the billing or collection departments at the utility company, since utilities have to get their rate increases past them. In addition, sometimes consumer reporters, whether working for your local newspaper or radio or TV, can be helpful. No one likes to look incompetent.
This is really not even about whether I used the gas, and it's not a blatant refusal to pay (once I get a satisfactorily accurate bill), it's about whether a company has the right to open a new reporting TL without specific authorization or knowledge of the consumer. When I called in for service and as a result a/c #123456 was opened. When I started getting charged for my neighbors gas, I called in to point out the irregularity in usage. I never got a letter pointing out how it was going to be handled, but I just resumed getting my regular bills. Never noticed until I pulled my credit that there was a second account #123457. When this all happened my usage was still irregular, a $70 overpayment seemed to vanish with no answers, I continued getting charged for usage after I moved out, never received a final bill, etc... Since many of my arguments are of a "my word against yours" nature, and legitimate as they are have not gotten any sincere attention, I'm trying to exploit a technicality. I authorized and opened a/c #123456, not this second account. The gas company has no signed agreements, etc. from me. Do I have any grounds to dispute the negative listing based on the fact that I did not open, request or authorize this account? Can an employee of any given creditor, arbitrarily open accounts or TLs "on behalf" of its customers without their knowledge. Sure, they were "doing me a favor", but I DIDN"T ASK FOR IT! We're talking about my personal info, and SSN, being copied from a legit account and used to establish a NEW ACCOUNT that would report to the CRAs. I have written confirmation from the utility that this is what they did, and thier intent was to "avoid inconvenience".
The second account is a derivative of the original account. The easiest way to correct the mistake from the original account was to close it off, and to replace that old account with a new account number. Do you have a paper-trail documenting the irregularities since the original mix-up? i.e. bills from the ORIGINAL account; and the bills from the SECOND account showing that the pre mix-up original usage was VASTLY lower than the SECOND account, indicative that they did not actually rectify the original mix-up. Have you included your state's utilities commission into the paper-trail of the complaint? Your defense is the erroneous nature of the account, not whether or not you actually requested that they close the first account, and open a second account in its place.
