11/25/2007 06:56

942 MLGW Trying to Scam Customers into eBilling?

Fellow Memphians, be on the lookout for an MLGW scam that appears to be engineered to con you into signing up for electronic billing. This month, as usual, my MLGW bill showed up and I paid it on time. I've never been late paying MLGW, so imagine my surprise when in Saturday's mail, I found a "CUT OFF NOTICE" from MLGW. The notice informed me that "To avoid disconnection of services, a payment of $121.71 must be received by close of business November 26, 2007." This notice was postmarked Friday, November 23rd. The notice went on to extol the virtues of online payments, and informed me that I can pay on the Internet at www.mlgw.com. Of course, my first reaction was to load up MLGW's website to determine what in the hell was going on. One of the links at MLGW's site is to "View, pay and analyze your MLGW bill." I clicked there. Not being an existing user of MLGW's online service, I chose to enroll as a new user. The enrollment form asks for the basic information: name, address, MLGW account number, and a "My Account Access Code" that began appearing on our bills in September. I filled out all of this information, then saw the "eBilling Options" checkbox. If you check the box, you agree that MLGW will no longer send you paper bills via the Postal Service. I did not check this box, because I want to continue to receive a paper bill. Upon attempting to submit the form, a rather sneaky dialog box popped up. I don't recall the exact verbiage, but it was something along the lines of, "Click OK to continue without enrolling in eBilling, or click Cancel to proceed and also enroll in eBilling." I'm an internet-savvy sort of person, but I had to carefully read and re-read that dialog several times before finally deciding what to click; and even then, I'm still not sure that I avoided being enrolled in eBilling and sacrificing my paper statement. After all of that was said and done, I was logged into a page at energyguide.com which told me that my balance was $0.00, and that my last payment was received on 11/15/2007. If my payment was received on 11/15/2007, why was I mailed a "CUT OFF NOTICE" on 11/23/2007? The only answer I can come up with is that MLGW is attempting to trick customers into enrolling in eBilling, to cut down on the number of paper bills they send out each month, and to then begin billing late fees for those users who subsequently don't receive a paper bill and thus don't pay on time. Be careful if you receive a similar notice and you know that you've made your payment on time. Don't accidentally waive your paper invoices.