Progress Energy.. What a joke.

by Extreme John on December 17, 2008 1,389 views

I have been meeting to write about this for a couple of weeks and completely forgot about it until today so I figured I better actually write it this time instead of just thinking about it. I was thumbing through this local free newspaper called the TBT, it’s a paper that borders on trying to be cool and trendy yet crosses the border and is often pretty annoying. One of the headlines on the paper was that Progress Energy (along with a couple of other local electric companies) were approved for a Rate Hike. Out of all of the companies that were approved for a Rate Hike, one company stood out like a sore thumb, Progress Energy.

Out of all the companies that actually got the approval for a Rate Hike, Progress Energy somehow was approved for something other than a Rate Hike, they were approved for Highway Robbery. Progress Energy got the approval to increase the cost of Electric by over 20%, think about that people…. OVER 20%, and if I am correct I believe it was something like 25% which in my eyes is hardly a Rate Hike, it’s a license to go ahead and stick it in people’s ass’s while they are hurting the most. I don’t give a flying ratts ass what anyone tells me there is no way anyone will justify a Rate Increase of over 20% to me, just not gonna happen.

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Take your average family’s bill and assume it is $100 a month, now that Bill is $120 a month or costing that family over an additional $240 a year in increased Electric bill costs. Move on to a larger house with somewhat of a larger electric bill let’s say $400 a month now your looking at $480 a month or an additional cost of over $800 per year. Where it gets really exciting is for business owners, or better yet let’s say a Tanning Salon company such as Extreme Tan and Smoothies. It’s a small business that operates on a small budget with 5 active locations in place by the Jan 2009 Extreme Tan and Smoothies will face the battle ahead of having 10 Electric Bills (2 per location) with an increase of yearly Electrical use increasing by over $20,000 a year. Yeah you read it right, an INCREASE of that much, not a total cost of $20,000. To give you an idea of what it will take to cover that cost without passing an increase on to our customers we would need to have at least 1,000+ new customers signup for a monthly tanning package at $19 a month (already a loss leader).

I have never been a fan of Progress Energy and honestly I have never had a good experience with any single “Customer Service” rep that I have spoken to over the last 5 years or so. This is a perfect example of exactly why Monopoly’s are bullshit, everything from Progress Energy to Brighthouse and Verizon. The fact is you simply cannot have one company in an entire region without them taking advantage of their power play. Fact of the matter is until there is another Electric company in the same area as Progress Energy, they will continue to have less than adequate service and they certainly won’t start showing any love to their customers because they have each of us by the Beans.