American Power and Light, LLC

I reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find the resolution is satisfactory to me. As I asked, APL explained to me the way that they bill tenants for the common kWh.

In your complaint, you noted dissatisfaction with the charges on your AP&L statement. As you know, each month AP&L provides each resident with a monthly statement which states the time period covered by the bill, the amount of electric usage, any service charge and a distribution recovery...

charge. The service charge and distribution recovery charge should not vary from bill to bill, and these charges are a flat charge per month, that it, they are not pro-rated based on the number of days you occupied your residence. This practice is not atypical in the industry.  AP&L regrets that our customer service representative was not able to satisfactorily answer your question regarding the pro-ration of the charges, and trusts this response has provided you with the information that you need. If not, please do not hesitate to call the customer service number, included on your last billing statement.

Dear Ms. [redacted]:
In your complaint, you noted
dissatisfaction with the charges on your AP&L statement and asked that you
be billed in a manner reflective of your energy consumption.  
Each month AP&L provides a
resident with a monthly statement which states the time...

period covered by the
bill, the amount of actual electric usage, a service charge (6.75) and a
distribution recovery charge (10.99.)  The
amount of the service charge and the distribution recovery charge should not
vary from bill to bill, and these figures are typically a small amount of the
total amount owed. The large majority of the amount billed is for the actual
amount of electric used by a resident.
I feel that an explanation of the
charges on your bill would be beneficial to you.  This information is also located on the back
of your billing statement.  The Service
Charge is the monthly fee charged to bill, read meters, and maintain your
account.  The Distribution Recovery
Charge is the monthly fee for providing, installing, and maintaining the
primary electrical infrastructure for the community.  These charges are quite standard amongst
electric companies in Ohio. You
requested that the Distribution Recovery fee not be charged to you any
longer.  However, that charge will be
assessed on every monthly statement. 
However, although on other companies’ statements the charge can be
dependent on your electric usage and increase to as much as $150.00, with
AP&L the fee is a flat fee and will not exceed $10.99 per month.
Additionally, you raised a
concern regarding the Convenience Charge and the fact that it is not located on
your billing statement.  The credit card
convenience charge is a fee from the processing company that we use to process the
credit card payments.  This fee is
charged per credit card payment, whether you pay online or over the phone the
charge is the same.  The charge does not
appear on your billing statement because it is not assessed if you choose to
mail a payment in or make your payment by e-check. We hope that the information provided in this response is helpful to you. The AP&L Customer Service Department can be reached Monday through Friday from 8am – 4:30 pm by phone at ###-###-####, should you have further questions or concerns.

Rather than address the issues listed in my complaint, or provide resolution in the manner I specified, the provider has chosen to act like this is the first time they have been contacted by me to reach a resolution.  In their response, they stated and encouraged me to contact their customer service so that a supervisor may further explain their billing practices, but not without first adding the disclaimer that I would not be receiving a prompt answer from them as “they need some time to pull up my records, review them, and arrange for a callback”.  This would be great, had I not already done so, received no resolution from them and thus chose to escalate my problem resolution process by contacting the Revdex.com.The business offers redundant information regarding their billing practices, and states in their reply that I have set up a new account with them at the time of my address change. I refute these claims, as I was never informed that this would be occuring at the time of my very brief phone call with the customer service agent who instructed me to hang up and go online on their website and do the address change myself. However, and once again, he never once mentioned or gave notice that my account would be billed for a $30 'set up fee' for having me do their job. In my initial contact with their customer service to resolve the issue, I was told no one can waive fees except for a supervisor, I was transferred to the supervisor who was not available to take my call, so I left a voicemail and requested a call back to further discuss my issue. Already ignoring my request, 2 days later, I receive an email from a David claiming to be the supervisor I requested. In his email he states:"Good morning sir,I have been out of the office for the past few days, and still am. I understand that you wished for a call back from the supervisor on 12/11 regarding our setup fee. I understand your frustration with not being told about this when you had stated you were moving into another unit within the building. This fee is charged for setting up a new account on our end, even if you have been a previous customer of ours a new account must be created. Unfortunately this cannot be waived as it is the administrative fee to do so. I know this is probably not what you wanted to hear and I apologize but we do have time spent creating new accounts. Please feel free to email me directly if you have further questions."After this email, multiple phone calls, and a lot of wasted time I will never get back, I was finally able to speak with David, or Dave as he goes by. During my call, we had a long argument regarding their failure to provide notice of their billing fees. It was during this call that Dave admitted it was his customer service rep's fault for not providing notice that the fees would be incurred, or actually doing their job and changing my address during my call. However "time was spent creating the new account" and as such he would not waive the fees. After that I stated I would not be paying this bogus $30 fee and he told me it was my right to refuse to pay it, but he would not credit my account for it, or remove it and to go ahead and file my complaint with the Revdex.com, as it was my right, but still nothing would be done about it. This, an otherwise very polite and politically correct way to tell me to go fly a kite and we ended the call. In conclusion, I refuse the reply from the business, and refuse any further reply that does not resolve my issue in the way I stated in my original complaint, and since this business loves redundancy, I will list below again:*Credit my account for the $30 fee, as well as the late fees incurred since Dec, due to non-payment of this ridiculous fee*Retrain their customer service reps to actually provide service to the customers, and give notice of when and if any fees will be associated with any changes made to the account.How does a business like American Electric & Lighting is able to exist, with such a ridiculously high number of complaints filed against them for the billing practices is beyond my comprehension. PS: Please reply promptly, with your resolution. Promptly does not mean waiting until the last possible day allowed (10 days) to send a reply.