Business ProfileforNortheast Ohio Natural Gas, Corp.

We have been on a budget plan with this gas company for a long time. Northeast Ohio Gas sets the budget. I prepared to pay online and when I opened my account for July I was shocked at the amount due. The total was over $1100 to bring my bill current. I immediately called the company and asked why my budget wasn’t adjusted if we were using significantly more gas than when the budget was set. I was told it was my responsibility to watch my monthly bill. Perhaps that is so, however, a few hundred dollars vs over $1000 is significant and unacceptable. I asked if we could arrange increased monthly payments and was told if I paid $895 they would adjust the bill. I informed them if I had that amount of money I would pay the entire bill. The lady I spoke with was unsympathetic and rude. I moved monies and am going to pay the amount. However, I intend to read my gas meter monthly and pay accordingly because getting slapped with a $1000 plus bill from a company that should have parameters in place when a customer’s gas usage dramatically increases, according to them, is unacceptable. So is a more appropriate method of repayment. We are at present looking at viable options to change our supplier.*

The customer's settle up amount for June 2023 was high due to much higher gas prices, which were nearly double those from prior years. In 2022 Northeast adjusted customers' budget amounts in November, but this customer was on a budget plan plus an installation plan that prevented the billing system from pulling up the account during the period the adjustments were made. For 2023, Northeast will not place customers back on budget plus installments in order to prevent this from occurring, thus allowing the newly implemented updates to the billing system to pull budgets in November and February to determine if the monthly amounts need to be adjusted to reduce true ups in June. Northeast will also review the recorded phone conversation with this customer and use it for training purposes to help customer service representatives be more professional and courtesy in their responses to customers.