Extremely Lame

 …we’ll just screw your credit score and not bother to tell you about it.

Well, well, well. I now know why I couldn’t get my credit approved the other day. It seems that my last electric company sent a collection agency after me and my ex after we were told by the apartment complext that they take the last month of the electric bill out of the security deposit. Not only did that not happen, but the outstanding balance was sent on to a collection agency before was even 30 days overdue. Furthermore, no one has made any effort whatsoever to get a hold of wither of us for seven months despite there being evidence that they have my new address, as one of the credit rating agencies lists my ex’s current address as my current address. My phone number has been the same through three different moves, thanks to Vonage, so they have that number.

So, now I get to go scrounging through boxes in storage, hoping that I find an old electric bill that has the old account number on it. I also have to go poring through all the paperwork from my old apartment to verify that they indeed took money out for the electric bill.

In the meantime, however, the ex and I get to enjoy a 100 point hit on our credit scores until we deal with a) the apartment complex, b) the electric company, c) the collections agency, and d) all three credit reporting agencies.

Why is this nonsense such a pain in the ass for consumers? If I were a business, could I sue for this interruption if I were denied credit based on a bogus claim such as this. This isn’t even including the lost productivity accrued by dealing with this nonsense and jumping through all these damn hoops.

What kind of business model is it where you assume the absolute worst in humanity and treat your customers with absolutely zero regard? Oh yeah, one where they’ve set up an artificial monopoly. This refers both to the credit rating agencies, but more importantly, this electric company, Coserv.

It seems that the way CoServ works is that they make deals with apartment complexes as they’re being built and give the apartment a cut of the electric bill if they make it so CoServ is the only electric company residents will be able to use. The electric company benefits because there is no competition, the apartment complex benefits because they get a cut, and the residents of the apartment complex lose big time. Grande Communications had this exact same kind of deal, only it was with cable, telephone, and internet. When a company has it set up to where they artificially set up a small-scale monopoly, they can provide sub-standard service and be accountable to no one, particularly when it’s for necessities like electricity and internet (Hey, internet’s a necessity for me, damn it!).