Hey Dan

I have for a long time been in a war with TXU. Though a war would normally involve both sides with weapons this one does not. You see as a TXU customer I have no weapons. They have no customer service department and no sale department. The service they provide is on a do you want electric or not basis. If a bill is wrong well you can sue them for the money or just pay it. Now I am a just pay it kind of person. So you would think that TXU and I would get along just fine… well no.

You see it all started last March when I moved from an apartment into a house own by a friend who included electric as part of rent. I called and asked them to discontinue electric service, this confused them since why would anyone not want electric service. So they kept billing me… at fist I thought I had missed a small amount of my close out bill. The bill I got for April and May were less then $1. So I did the just pay them thing. Big mistake. Now I had proved to TXU that I was still living there and using electricity.

In June and July someone moved into the apartment I have moved out of and started using more electricity. These bills were in the $70-100 range. So I call and asked them to really take my name off the account now. No dice. By September the bill that by now I was not just paying was close to $400 and they were sending me the ‘we are going to cut you off’ letters. Great I said ‘do it.’ They didn’t … so by October the bill was $470.

So I resolved to stop talking to the service department and start talking to the ‘customer service’ department. It takes 2 hours to get though to a person in this department. I was told that because they had no record of me asking to discounted service and I had not transferred service thus I could not prove I did not use the electricity and would have to pay for it or they were going to cut me off. At this point I got very angry with them and asked to talk to a supervisor. I was told we do not have supervisors and if I hung up with out resolving this problem I would be cut off. So I paid it. This I hoped to be the end… it was not.

In October I got a new job back in Dallas and that meant moving again. The apartment I wanted to move in to only had one option for electric. You guessed it. Now because I am such a bad risk for TXU they wanted a $150 deposit after all I did not pay my electric for July – October. So I paid it in hopes that would be the end… it was not.

Today I got a call from TXU. My electric payment was paid 5 days late. They had received the payment and currently want no money from me. But they still saw fit to call me and tell me my electric was late. The even made me prove that the person on the phone they called was actually me by providing part of my social security number. Why I asked? “This is a service TXU provides.” Was the answer.