My son and daughter moved out of my home 3 years ago. I had sole custody of them and they had never had any services other than cell services in their names before moving out of my home. To save money they moved out together, with my daughters husband, who had lived with HIS mom before this and not had anything in his name either.
My son decided to put the lights in his name, and my daughter took care of other things like cable, water etc. Within a month they had a much higher bill because my son shares the same name as his father, however different dob and social sec numbers obviously. We called and explained and offered to send a birth cert and social security card and state ID to show them this was not the same person, in fact they even had different middle names. Duke did not care, and turned off the power. My daughters husband then put the power in his name and was honest saying what had happened, and they decided to put my ex husbands bill on HIS bill. They eventually paid it because my daughter was pregnant and needed electricity.
Fast forward to now.
My daughter paid her bill using her work debit card. She got a confirmation number and receipt. About two weeks later she got a bill for $444.26 saying she had passed a bad check. She does not have a checking account, just a visa card from her work. They told her she had a bad check and she explained that was impossible and gave them the confirmation number and said she could fax them the proof showing she had paid them and money was taken from her card. They were not any help and very rude to her and said she should not have passed a bad check.
Finally she went to social services having two sick kids in the house and showed them the situation. They agreed to pay $200 which is what she owed this month. She had that money but called Duke to let them know and they still wanted the additional $244 which she had already paid. They said they would disconnect her and she would have to pay $404 to turn the lights back on. However the disconnect was for $444. I finally got on the phone and asked why there was a $40 difference less to allow the lights to get turned off and they said they would put the bad check fee onto the next bill. I explained again there was never a bad check, she paid for it with her debit card, but their system showed a bad heck so it had to be true.
Mind you, I work for a call center myself taking payments all day and this agent was becoming rude and started saying my daughter was a bad person for passing a bad check. She stopped herself and I said by all means keep going I work as a call center agent myself and know this is being recorded. And now only being recorded but by law I can request a copy of this because now she is discussing payment issues with someone not listed on the account anyway which is illegal.
In the end we paid it, taking money from my bank account, but this issue is not resolved. There is $244 in money out there somewhere that Duke has and says she did not pay. They are still claiming a bad check when she doesnt have a bank account or checking account.
I wont even get into social services they have to also be the most inept people around. My daughter explained she had the money for this months bill but what had happened and they also had no idea how to fix it. One would think a govt agency would be able to talk to these people on behalf of them to show them what my daughter brought in which was proof of payment via a debit card and a confirmation number for the exact amount they claim this check was written for. A letter from the supposed bank she wrote the check from showing she never ever has had a bank account with them. How does someone pass a bad check if one has never had a bank account from the bank who returned it? And BTW no one else wrote a check, duke even said the bank account had her name on it.
Like I said I ended up helping her and I know we will never see that money again since duke is not going to admit being wrong. Oh and now she can only pay her bill with cash in person because of this phantom bad check.
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