Enbridge is unbelievable!

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Diesel said:
Oh I see... so suggesting that there could be other ways to charge customers that is more representative of their use, and hence more fair -- such as no customer charge but higher delivery fees, since that is what they are doing, delivering gas -- is now somehow illogical and translates to not wanting to pay?
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Having a meter on your property IS use, whether there is gas flowing through it or not. Even if you never use any gas, they still have to maintain the meter, do readings, send you a bill... Are you suggesting the people that use moderate amounts of gas should subsidize you by EVERYONE paying higher fees? It probably costs them MORE than $20 a month to do all of that.
 
Diesel said:
Oh I see... so suggesting that there could be other ways to charge customers that is more representative of their use, and hence more fair -- such as no customer charge but higher delivery fees, since that is what they are doing, delivering gas -- is now somehow illogical and translates to not wanting to pay?

I don't mind paying for both the gas I use and the delivery of said gas. The bottom line is that I think there could be a better billing structure in place.
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Whether you use a lot of gas or use very little, if you have gas service, they still have to maintain the infrastructure all the way to your home. It's like calling over an electrician, plumber, gas tech, whatever to your home. He has to drive over to your place (gas, insurance, maintenance), use his expensive-to-acquire knowledge (you eat a lot of **** until you prove yourself), use his expensive tools (no Vaseline) and whether he replaces a receptacle/rubber washer/high limit switch in 15min or spends half the day replacing that run of knob&tube/running pipe/doing a furnace re&re, he'll still charge you the same to show up at your door and say "hello". During the time he takes to go your place and to the next job site, he's not making any money doing work for someone else. There are fixed costs to delivering any service to your home and you should file that for future use. Even slaves need to be fed, clothed and equipped :cool:
 
Diesel said:
Thanks psycho... I'm happy to see your post. It proves it is not worth being frugal in this country. You used nearly 3x as much gas as me but only paid 54% more. So the frugal are subsidizing the non-frugal -- as I posted on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/comments/u5dhf/its_hard_to_be_frugal_in_ontario/
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Natural gas isn't the only thing being sold here. He paid exactly the same as you for what we'll call "use of a meter" and then paid 3x more for 3x more gas. If you break it into the two components, he paid the exact same as you proportional to what he used (and proportional to the costs incurred by Enbridge). That sounds like fairness to me.
 
Diesel said:
Just like toll roads that charge per km and gasoline taxes that basically charge more for the more that you consume are fair taxes. Flat rate taxes are not because not everyone consumes like everyone else.
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This is a false analogy. If you look at the 407 ETR, even if you only drive 1km on it every 3 months (which is similar to your low natural gas usage), if you don't have a transponder, they charge you an account fee to mail out your bill. If it was straight usage, the cost of the stamp on the envelope would be more than they collected from you for your 1km of usage, let alone the cost of the printing the bill, staffing their call centre, etc. If they charged straight usage, everyone's rates per KM would go up to subsidize the extremely low usage users.

If you *do* have a transponder, they charge you for that and your account fee is rolled into the cost of that.

As for gasoline taxes, they are far from fair. If I drive a gas guzzling Hummer that uses 3x as much gas as your car, I pay 3x more in gasoline taxes than you, yet I am not using 3x as much road, bridges, etc as you. But since it would be grossly impractical to levy the tax any other way but as a flat rate per litre of fuel, we use the current system, with the larger users in effect subsidizing the smaller users.
 
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Under the old system the big users actually subsidized the little ones.

The billing system is actually fair in concept. Whether it's the vehicle that takes you to work or the vehicle that brings the gas to your house you pay for the cost of the vehicle (Pipe and meters or the car) you pay a fee or licence for the priveledge of using the vehicle and you pay for the fuel, natural gas or Esso. The only place where you can control the costs is the fuel usage.

The problem is that the government advertizes that we should cut back and we expect a reward where in reality our unit cost goes up.

Go on a diet and start buying smaller packages and your unit cost goes up.

If you are considering shutting down the meter during the summer then you will end up with a weighted billing not unlike those get when they want to cancel their bike insurance in the winter.

The business math works. But it sucks.

Maybe it was better under the old system where the big users were punished by making them subsidize the little users. How do you unscramble that egg?
 
murf said:
Isn't that charge classic? I guess their CEO who gets paid millions slipped that charge in there. Nice work.
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That one's a riot. A CEO loses $5 Million a year but gets a bonus because they did well. Their arguement is that if they didn't do such a good job the company would have lost even more. If only the production line plods could use the same excuse.
 
oilycreek said:
I work too hard already, even someone as amazing as I am needs a rest.
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Just go up to an occupy protest group and mention that you guys use dope daily on the job and you'll have plenty of volunteers that'll work for snack-food only :cool:
 
Don't even get me started on enbridge. Such a headache. Bunch of crooks who give you the biggest runaround ever... and I mean PHYSICALLY running around on top of the phone tag.
 
LiNK666 said:
So I just got my bill for Enbridge. The consumption was 0, but I still got charged $70.... why???
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If you list the items and the prices we can help decipher the bill :cool:
 
How can you be paying $70 unless you haven't payed your last bill. I used 69 m^3 last bill compared to last bill using 108 m^3 and paying $8 less for 40 m^3 less usage.

 
LiNK666 said:
So I just got my bill for Enbridge. The consumption was 0, but I still got charged $70.... why???
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You may be on equal billing. This is the time of year where they stop equal Billing and you would either have a credit, or you would owe, in your case seems you owe. Other reasons are, residential meters are read every second month I believe, so this bill could be an estimate. Do you have a gas water heater, if so your condition wouldn't be zero.


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It's not residential, it's business so I guess that's why they feel they can charge more. Here is the breakdown.

April 6 - June 6, 2012

Last month's bill 79.35
Payment received 79.35 CR
Adjustment to May 12 Billing charges 70.22 CR
Released Cash Deposit/interest 1.85 CR
________________________________________________

Balance forward & Past due 72.07 CR
New Gas Charge 140.00
Total HST 9.07
_________________________________________________
Total amount due now 77.00


On the second page:
Details about your new gas charges

RATE 6 : 06 APR 12-07 MAY 12 70.00
Customer charge

RATE 6 : 08 MAY 12-06 JUN 12 70.00
Customer charge
_______________________________________
Total new gas charges 140.00


Meter reading information
RATE 6 Commercial
Current actual meter reading 06 JUN 12 1619
Less previous meter reading 06 APR 12 1619
Billing period days 0062

Gas used this period (m3) 0
PEF Value 0.99380 Adjusted m3 0



So can anyone explain this to me?
 
nobbie48 said:
I tried that with my industrial unit and they threatened massive reconnect and disconnect fees.
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At my unit they won't cancel because the landlord must make the call. My landlord won't make the call because for insurance purposes the gas must be connected to the furnace incase of pipes freezing etc in the winter. I've been paying $87 per month for the last two years without turning anything on. Been at this unit for 12 years in total, used to put heat on in the winter, but the machinery keeps everything reasonably warm.

$87 a month for a pilot light.
 
dru9 said:
At my unit they won't cancel because the landlord must make the call. My landlord won't make the call because for insurance purposes the gas must be connected to the furnace incase of pipes freezing etc in the winter. I've been paying $87 per month for the last two years without turning anything on. Been at this unit for 12 years in total, used to put heat on in the winter, but the machinery keeps everything reasonably warm.

$87 a month for a pilot light.
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who's name is on the gas bill?

Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk 2
 
nobbie48 said:
I tried that with my industrial unit and they threatened massive reconnect and disconnect fees.
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What do you expect? We have more important things to do, then running out to your business turning off and on a gas meter, so you can save a few bucks.

Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk 2
 
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