Duke Energy
Dumb Billing System

In March I accepted a contract in a city far from my home base. I found an apartment, and went through the processes of getting the utilities in my name. The first bill came, and I paid it online. Then I got a 2nd bill a few weeks later with the entire previous amount plus late fees assessed, and a threat to disconnect.

I called their billing line, and the agent attempted to post a payment from my debit card. I didn't go through. I checked my bank account balance and it was well above the submitted amount. I called Card Services for the debit card, and they told me it was denied because of the zipcode. I called Duke back, and asked them to submit using my home address, and not the service address. They have no facility to do so!!! So they passed me over toa supervisor (Alicia) who was quite helpful, and we used an ACH check to pay the bill. I thought it was a done deal. Wrong!!! THe ACH check never reached the bank. Nearly a month later I check my Duke Energy account and find the balance is once again without any payments posted to it.

Duke uses Western Union as a clearinghouse for credit/debit transactions but their computerized system is so dumb it 1) Does not allow for a billing address that is different from the service address, and 2) blindly processes all transactions using the service address.

Now, in August (Remember this started in late March), another supervisor, who sounded like a broken record advised me to pay at a payment location. I requested any late fees be resceinded since it was their fault the payments could not be posted. But the supervisor kept saying. You owe the money, and I kept saying your billing system needs to be updated to allow an alternate billing address.

There is no way to complain to Duke's IT department for their shortsightness, and lack of programming prowess. I do not have to do this with Comcast or any other service provider, just Duke Energy.

So, now, I have to schlep over to an ATM, take out several hundreds of dollars, and depend on a pimply faced kid at the local gas station to process the payment.

I hope that puts this to bed, but Duke's IT needs to get off it's lazy keister, and modify their billing system to allow a BILLING ADDRESS to be diferent from a SERVICE ADDRESS. Otherwise I'll escalate this to their Board of Directors.

Company: Duke Energy
Country: USA
Site: duke-energy.com

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