Washington Gas

[Btubes18]

I am sure many of you have this company as your Gas provider, since they have a monopoly in the DC area. And I believe they have a lot of political backing, hence their corporate HQ, being one of the closest buildings physically to the capital in DC.

Their Customer service is absolutely terrible, and if you ever have to deal with them...DO NOT trying calling them. Take your issues to their building on Constitution Avenue, it will get resolved there a lot quicker.

My story is pretty long and I will post if I can enough feedback that other people have had issues with this company.

If you have, could you explain? I want to see if anyone has a story like mine.

Thanks!

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

Every gas company has issues. Peoples Gas (I think) in Chicago took forever to get a situation resolved. They were billing me for the wrong unit and tried to double bill me while shutting off gas for the other unit (where someone lived).

The first level of representatives have zero access and power to info. Ask to speak to their manager, problems usually get solved within minutes after that.

[RememberOsaka]

Utility companies in general have ****ty customer service. My business has had the same phone number for 17 years. I recently moved the location within the same city and it took over a week for Verizon to have all 5 lines ring at the new location. For 5 days my main business # was ringing at a private residence.

[HighOnHendrix]

Utility companies in general have ****ty customer service.

Lack of competition. Most attempts to inject competition into utilities fail, largely because they are presided over by the government.

[TimmySmith]

I noticed something sort of odd about them in the past year.

I get a postcard essentially saying "Hey Customer, gas prices fluctuate you might wish to consider locking in your rate to x."

I do nothing.

Next postcard "just a reminder about locking in your gas rate."

I do nothing.

Next postcard "please call customer service and lock in a rate as soon as possible.

I felt like I was being shaken down. It went from choice to requirement. I still never did it.

[Gibbsisgod2006]

I am sure many of you have this company as your Gas provider, since they have a monopoly in the DC area. And I believe they have a lot of political backing, hence their corporate HQ, being one of the closest buildings physically to the capital in DC.

Their Customer service is absolutely terrible, and if you ever have to deal with them...DO NOT trying calling them. Take your issues to their building on Constitution Avenue, it will get resolved there a lot quicker.

My story is pretty long and I will post if I can enough feedback that other people have had issues with this company.

If you have, could you explain? I want to see if anyone has a story like mine.

Thanks!

My mother worked for Washington Gas for 33 years and retired early because they had a reorg in 2000 and she said the reorg and policy chage was horrible. Actually their main office is in Springfield, VA not in DC.

[Gibbsisgod2006]

I noticed something sort of odd about them in the past year.

I get a postcard essentially saying "Hey Customer, gas prices fluctuate you might wish to consider locking in your rate to x."

I do nothing.

Next postcard "just a reminder about locking in your gas rate."

I do nothing.

Next postcard "please call customer service and lock in a rate as soon as possible.

I felt like I was being shaken down. It went from choice to requirement. I still never did it.

My Grandfather got screwed doing that because back about 2 or 3 years ago he signed up for it and the prices for gas went down he still was paying the same fixed price when he could have paid a lower amount if he chose not to pay that fixed amount.

[MikeInJc aka M.I.A.]

I had an issue with them recently. Basically the past summer I forgot to pay the gas bill during I believe June, July, and August, because the bill for June was about $8, July was a CREDIT of $3, and August was about $12. The reason the bill is so low during those months is because my house doesn't use anything gas wise except for the stove (which I use at a bare minimum). So I paid the September bill (the total of June, July, August, and September) which was around a whooping $35

Well everything was good, great, GRAND; except around December when I got a bill for close to $600. Obviously I was confused and called to ask why I had such a huge bill. They said I had missed a couple of payments in a row (June, July, and August). I told them I was thrown off by the credit they gave me in July and I forgot about the payments because they were so low. She informed me since I hadn't paid those payments on time they were requiring a $450 deposit to keep my service going.

Keep in mind they wanted this ALL upfront, were going to hold my money for over a year then refund it, and all because I forgot to pay less than $20 worth of utilities over the course of three months. WTF kind of sense does that makes?

Anyways, I got them talked down to letting me pay installments and only having to pay I believe $360 total. I tried to have them wave it off, but they refused. So here I'm getting this news that I have to pay this ubsurd amount of money just when I was going to be using the most gas, hence the higher bill anyways, during the months of December through February.

I got on a plan that spaces out the payments throughout the year so I only have to pay a little over $80 a month (plus the $60 for six months) regardless of how much I use. Then at the end of the year they do an averaging thing and give me a refund or raise my monthly rate based off of last years use.

These guys are crooks, plain and simple.

Sorry this was kind of long, but that my beef with these people.

[Btubes18]

Yes I agree all companies are like this.

So here is my story (apollogies for it being long):

First off, a few years ago, I moved into a rental house with a few guys out of college. I was in charge of the cable and gas. So I setup the cable (Comcast issues with that) and I then call Washington gas informing them I need to setup the account under my name. First off, they take your social security number. They charged us $450 deposit since this was my first rental. So we paid that…a year goes by no problems, bills paid on time and in full.

We renew our lease for another 6 months. Towards the end of the 6 months, July 2009. We get a call from the Landlords, informing us we have one month to find a new place because they are moving back in. So we find another place and I use the online service to cutoff my service July 31st, as we were moving into our new place August 1st. I assume that the Landlords would setup their account…

We are in our new place and I get a few bills forwarded over to me for Gas, and they are very small. So I assume they are just the last charges. Until a larger one comes and I notice it read September 2009 reading, and I know something is wrong. This is around the beginning of November. I call up WGAS to get this organized and I told them I did my stop service online, and they tell me well “sometimes that feature doesn’t work, so you have to call in”. I am pissed they offer a service to disconnect on the internet and it doesn’t freaking work. So he tells me that the service for my account is cutoff, but they can’t transfer the bills to another account…

After a few more days worth of calls, I finally talk to the Landlords of the house and they setup an account for themselves. The Washington gas people tell me I still owe for two outstanding bills Sept. 09 and Oct 09. So I pay the Sept. 09 and the guy tells me the final bill will be transferred over to the new account. So I go about and watch my account online and it still has the pending balance, but it has not been removed from my account. I call them again and they reassure me it will be transferred and the account will close within a week.

I forget about the account, until a couple weeks ago I get a check in the mail from Washington gas, stating “Net Refund”, thinking this was my deposit. I have no hesitation to cash the check. About a week after that I get a call from a Collections Agency, stating I owe Washington Gas, a SUBSTANTIAL amount. I immediately give Washington Gas a call, which takes 2 hours to even talk to someone. I talk to a person who barely speaks English and has not idea what is going on with my account. She puts me on hold for about 30 min to talk to a supervisor (she won’t let me speak to the supervisor). Keep in mind this is all OUTSOURCED customer service. So they are in some other country. Very very frustrating. As it turns out, Washington gas never closed my account; therefore there were two accounts open. The Landlords payments were crediting to my account, but not to their own account. They ultimately had this switch and the credit applied to their account, but for some reason Wgas decided to send me LIVE checks to me, without telling me. This was all their mistake.

So today I finally head to DC to speak with the customer service rep their. He speaks English and I sit down face to face with him. Where he states this is definitely our error. And it will take the system about a week to clear up. I tell him to call the collections agency about my account and make sure they close that off.

So hopefully this mess will be cleared up, but if it is not…next stop is a lawyer. This is all their fault and I have documentation of all the steps that preceded to this. I probably spent at least 72 hours of actual time spent waiting on the phone trying to handle this. My suggestion, never deal with them, it is a nightmare.

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

Btubes18, I'm pretty damned sure it's very illegal for them to be double billing. That's almost the situation I was in, except they had the meters screwed up and were billing us for the wrong apartments.

I called every day until it was resolved. I sent documents over fax showing where I currently lived, how long my lease was, when my lease expired etc, just to get as many records as humanly possible of me trying hard to make sure they couldn't bend me over a barrel.

P.S. If you sent something via fax to them, bring that up every time you call, they'll check...find out they DID receive a fax, and they'll start treating you nicer.

[Soup]

Actually, I have a positive story, They gave me a 600 dollar credit becuase of a bad accounting error. It wasn't a big deal I think they were charging me 3 dollars extra but I think it was due to a bad ticker. I would have never noticed it until they brought it up. Overall I haven't had a problem with them.

[Btubes18]

Btubes18, I'm pretty damned sure it's very illegal for them to be double billing. That's almost the situation I was in, except they had the meters screwed up and were billing us for the wrong apartments.

I called every day until it was resolved. I sent documents over fax showing where I currently lived, how long my lease was, when my lease expired etc, just to get as many records as humanly possible of me trying hard to make sure they couldn't bend me over a barrel.

P.S. If you sent something via fax to them, bring that up every time you call, they'll check...find out they DID receive a fax, and they'll start treating you nicer.

I am pretty sure what they did was illegal, but I am giving them the opportunity to resolve it all. If it is not fully resolved, then I will bringing in legal consultation to solve this issue.

I will not deal with them over the phone anymore, they are just incompetent to even speak with. I mean honestly maybe the dumbest people I have ever spoken to.

I work in DC, so it's just a short walk to their office next to the Capital.

[Btubes18]

Actually, I have a positive story, They gave me a 600 dollar credit becuase of a bad accounting error. It wasn't a big deal I think they were charging me 3 dollars extra but I think it was due to a bad ticker. I would have never noticed it until they brought it up. Overall I haven't had a problem with them.

Be careful...they sent a check to me stating "Net Refund" "Overpayment". About a week after I cashed it, I had a collections agency coming after me. They sent the check to me in error and instead of calling me or canceling the check...they freaking sent it to a collections agency.