Have you ever called the IRS with a simple tax question and been given ten different answers? This frustrating experience can be the same with your utility company, whether it's with gas, electricity, water or sewage. Here's the situation in a nutshell. Some utility companies have a very simplistic rate structure. By simplistic, there aren't many choices. Few choices mean the utility companies have little room for error. Other utility companies have a very complex set of rules and regulations. There can be a confusing array of different variations within each rate on top of this. Think of those Russian dolls where you open one up and you find more inside, and keep finding more.

Some utility companies have very sophisticated internal monitoring controls to watch your utilities and see that if you have any unusual spikes they can identify the root of the problem. Unfortunately, these are few. But they do exist. For the most part you are stuck with bureaucracies worthy of Kafka or more to the point, Dante's Inferno. It's not that anybody is trying to intentionally rip you off, it's just that the set of rules is so confusing the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. You ask a question and nobody can seem to tell you what's right.

Approximately 85% of gas/electric utilities across the country are private. The rest are run by municipalities. On the whole you'll find the municipal utilities have more simplistic rate structures. It doesn't mean they are any more generous and feel somehow protective. Particularly with water/sewage it can be the opposite. Cities are so strapped for cash they're really pushed to the wall to do anything for money just to survive. Raising water/sewage rates is one of those vehicles to do so. Some cities are outright arrogant and abusive when you try to ask them anything.

The question is what can you do when you're faced with a utility provider that in effect keeps telling you to go to hell when you have a problem?

This is a thread we'll continue with in future blogs. Please comment on your experiences with your utility providers and what you have found. We're really interested in what people have found across the country.