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Challenging KeySpan Terminator Complaint ends in power shutoff Sidebar: LIPA Looks to Put End To Joint Billing With KeySpan

The  terminator came calling on the afternoon of April 16 - a KeySpan field employee,  assigned to go to the home of Nicole and Joseph Lunz.

The employee terminated electric service to the couple's house in Massapequa Park even though they had complained to KeySpan on Jan. 8 about the gas part of their home energy bill. "Why would they turn our electric off when it was our  gas that was in dispute?" Nicole Lunz, 32, asked me last month.

The state Public Service Commission, which regulates the utility gas operation of KeySpan Energy Delivery, also has questions. Although the couple never complained to the PSC, the agency will review the matter, spokesman Edward Collins said last week.

"We're going to ensure that the company has in place procedures to avoid this  sort of thing in the future," Collins said. KeySpan's position: It already has  the procedures; they just weren't followed in this case, an unusual incident that will lead to further training of employees.

If KeySpan's learned something from its experience with Lunz, she, too, says she has learned a lesson: She could have protected herself better had she read fully the notices that came to her home and pursued all her rights.

Even knowing to whom to complain and with whom an appeal can be filed in a utility matter can be challenging. But a "Summary of Rights on Final Termination Notices" was among the notices sent to Lunz. It could have alerted her to her right to seek PSC review of her dispute with KeySpan Energy Delivery,  particularly when KeySpan sent warnings that preparations to terminate service were progressing.

Instead, Lunz found herself suddenly squaring off with that field employee.

As she recalled the encounter, she implored the KeySpan employee to hold off while she called the company. "He said, 'I can't wait on you. I have a job to  do.'" She asked how he could sleep at night. A KeySpan log characterizes her as  being "very abusive" that day.

Admittedly, she said, she lost her cool. Her frantic calls to KeySpan, as she  cared for two nephews and her own two children, resulted in restoration of electric service within three to four hours.

The link between her natural gas and electric service follows the connection between KeySpan and the Long Island Power Authority. KeySpan provides various  services for LIPA and its customers for electricity, including joint billing and  the fielding of complaints made through KeySpan-operated call centers.

It is uncertain what caused the couple's gas bills to be as high as they were  in approximately the first two months after they switched last winter from oil  to gas heating and took advantage of a KeySpan promotion to have it cover the equipment cost of a new boiler.

The gas bill for 30 days ending Dec. 20 was $697.23; for the 34 days ending  Jan. 23, it was $907.96, and for the 28 days ending Feb. 20, it was $464.12.

Many people suffered sticker shock as energy prices surged last winter, but  KeySpan has come to accept that something beyond market price spikes may have  influenced the couple's gas bills. So KeySpan this month granted a credit of nearly $500 on the unpaid portion of their bill, which had risen to more than $1,300. That left a balance of $855.74, which the couple said they've now paid.

Along the way, KeySpan wondered about the effects of factors that may have influenced gas use or energy efficiency, including a long-term house renovation. Since the investigation was carried out months after the complaint, a field  representative was limited in trying to determine the cause of relatively high gas use in the period in dispute.

To be sure, utility terminations are unusual. Overall, they represent a small  fraction of bills issued, said Arthur Abbate, director of credit, collection and  payment processing for KeySpan Corp. In the first five months of this year, he said, there were 10,833 service terminations for LIPA and KeySpan residential  and commercial customers on Long Island and the Rockaway peninsula in Queens. There were 7.2 million bills issued in the same period, Abbate said.

A breakdown of gas and electric terminations was not readily available, he said.

But there is broader significance in this couple's case: It reflects an  acknowledged failure by KeySpan to follow its own procedures, steps that can  help avoid a termination even if the outcome in any dispute is not necessarily  favorable to the consumer.

"I'm going to tell you we shouldn't have cut anything off," said Abbate on July 13 following an extensive review. In this case, a "high bill  investigation," Abbate said, should have been offered to Joseph Lunz, 35, when  he complained to KeySpan in January.

If an investigation was offered and refused, following a screening of the  complaint by phone, KeySpan officials said, the refusal should have been noted  in the log, but no refusal is recorded. A pending investigation is supposed to  stop collection efforts, according to Abbate.

Instead, what happened was replacement of the couple's gas meter on Jan. 9.

The meter then was tested and found to be accurate, according to KeySpan. So the absence of a "high bill investigation" allowed the collection process to begin in earnest.

According to the scenario described in one interview with Abbate and KeySpan spokeswoman Bonnie Habyan, the couple's partial payments then were apportioned to electric and gas; since a bill in the end shows a single amount owed, partial payment put the couple behind in paying for each service.

KeySpan sent termination warnings to the couple, but Nicole Lunz said she was  assured when she called KeySpan that she did not have to worry. She said she was still awaiting the outcome of what she believed was an ongoing investigation.  KeySpan's Abbate said the company log does not reflect calls between the first complaint and termination, but notes kept by the consumer make him think the log may not be complete.

Christopher Furlong, director of customer service for LIPA, said his review  convinces him, too, that service should not have been terminated. As far as he's concerned, Furlong said emphatically, "these are good customers who paid all  their undisputed bills." Nicole and Joseph Lunz have resolved what they will be doing now despite a call on July 13 from Robert Catell, chairman and chief executive of KeySpan Corp. Nicole Lunz took the call. "He wanted to make  amends," she said, adding that Catell also expressed his hope that the couple would remain gas customers.

The couple intends to switch back to oil, their trust in KeySpan eroded.

Early on, Nicole Lunz told me that somebody who works for an oil dealer  recommended that she contact me.

Joe Bavoso, a vice president for Champion Energy - the parent of Plainview-based Lewis Oil, said Nicole Lunz is a family friend, and so he  learned of her predicament. If Lunz agrees, Bavoso said, she would give a  testimonial for use in advertising, and the oil dealer and a manufacturer would  combine to cover the cost of labor and equipment to switch her back to oil.

"Normally," Bavoso said, "we wouldn't do that." To me, this column isn't an  endorsement of any energy source, and it's not about the thorny issue of conversions. It's about people - a mother facing a terminator - and procedures,  in place but not put into practice, that should have spared both of them that showdown.

LIPA Looks to Put End To Joint Billing With KeySpan Joint bills for customers  who get electric service through Long Island Power Authority and gas through KeySpan Energy Delivery could be splitting.

Bert Cunningham, a LIPA spokesman, said the single-bill format used by KeySpan under a contract with LIPA was considered a customer convenience. Now  LIPA wants separate bills issued by KeySpan for payments to LIPA for  electricity.

That billing split could occur by sometime next year if cost issues such as  increased postage are resolved, said Christopher Furlong, LIPA's director of customer service.

Separate bills could add clarity to a confusing energy market, Furlong said, buffering LIPA from the kind of criticism that arose when gas heating costs rose last winter.