duke energy disconnected service at my home due to association with ex girlfried and her mother charlotte, North Carolina

I moved to NC at the beginning of Feb 2013 and stayed with a "friend". He called the utility company without my knowledge or consent  and listed me as a "roommate". We didn't have a lease. He did. The utilites (water & electri) were in his name alone. There is nothing whatsoever that connects us financially or otherwise other than his word.

Duke Energy has now seen fit to hold me responsible for his utility bill to the tune of almost $800.  My bill showed an adjustment (debit) in the amount of $800 being added to my first bill. They have now sent a shut-off notice if I don't pay them for his bill.  So, let me get this straight. I can call up Duke Energy and tell them that Joe Blow is my roommate and somehow he's going to be responsible for my financial obligations just because he knows me??

Neat trick. How much you want to bet if I try that I'll go to jail for fraud? or Identity theft or something.

This is the same scenario with different players that this other person is arguing against. It's FRAUD, plain and simple. Neither my name nor my social security number appear on the old bill. It is NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY financially or otherwise. It is ILLEGAL for DUKE ENERGY to hold me responsible for someone else's bill.

Does anyone know of a lawyer or a class action suit against DUKE ENERGY for FRAUD? I would sincerely like to join that group.

Thank you.

As a local Independent businessman and NC State Electrical Contractor, we have experienced nothing but headaches from Duke Energy today, as though this is a little differrent than some post here, I am posting a recent letter we sent them due to their very own "taxpayer funded" service truck employees who are stealing our customers equipment & cabling when we perform electrical service upgrades, and those same Duke employees are taking the wire and such to the local salvage yards profitting by it. We ourselves reuse parts of some old equuipment to keep on hand for emergency repairs and such needs for customers as it is not made any longer and recycle our copper/aluminum jumper cabling for other services to keep costs down for those other customers we do service upgrades for. Now when we return to our customers addresses to follow up after inspection & changeover and seal holes in building, ALL that equipment & wire is taken by Duke employees. Repeated calls to Duke HQ in Charlotte get nowhere or condescending replies to us contractors and it costs us losses as well as higher costs now placed on our future customers. I am going to local Duke Energy distribution office today where they dispatch service trucks from to service the lcoal Hickory, NC region where this has been happening a lot this past year alone and try to get someone in charge of  Service Trucks to issue memo to cease this practice as it is immoral and illegal and affects us local electrical contractors...



Letter to Duke Energy:





I am a NC Licensed Electrical Contractor #28683L. We have tried to contact

various Duke offices regarding an immoral practice by your Service Truck

employees which has to STOP!



They are stealing & profitting off our customer's equipment and our

temporary copper/aluminum jumpers used to temporarily tie newly constructed

electrical service entrances to these homes or businesses, and Duke needs to

send memo to all office to stop this. It costs us local small electrical

contractors losses as well as our customers now, and in many states I have

worked in over 30 years, NEVER has this been allowed by any other electric

utility company of its employees. YOUR service truck employees are only supposed

to disconnect old triplex (or similar) service drop conductors & reconnect

to our new service entrance conductors at the weatherhead once our County

Inspector notifies you, and that is all. NOT take our tap conductors or the old

equipment which we recycle some of that to help keep costs down for future

customers we do electrical work for.



I am tired of repeated runaround from Duke and ridiculous remarks from low

level office staff, as this is now going to go to Channel 9 News in Charlotte as

well as the local Hickory Daily Record here in Catawba County where we primarily

work and have seen this happen too many times this year alone in service upgrade

work we have done for our local customers' properties.



Duke employees who are taxpayer funded as they are should NOT be allowed to

personally profit off of local electrical contractors or our customer's property

& equipment we have contracts with as they are, for these same Duke

employees' personal financial gain on Duke company time!!!

I am not saying that this is your case, but this is why they are probably doing it.

Sometimes when there are multiple people living at a single residence, if one person signs up for electricity and fails to pay it.  Instead of paying the delinquent amount, they discontinue service and another person in the household takes over the account at a zero balance.  This basically leaves a past due balance owed that there is no incentive for anyone to pay.  Yes, it can ruin peoples credit but in general the people that do this could care less.  Unfortunately for these people utilities have gotten wise to this "trick" and are starting to tighten down on people doing this.

So if you and your ex-girlfriend were tied to a single account in any way it is very likely that they are now going to make you responsible for the delinquent balance.  Unfortunatly unless you can convince them that you were definatly not at the residences in question, and  you have nothing to do with her currently you may have to come up with the money.  But you may not be out the money forever, it would then be up to you to go to your ex and get them to pay you back.  If you can't do that then small claims court may be a good alternative for you.