Laclede Gas Company Laclede Gas Co Unannounced Unexplained Customer Service Fee Without Warning Ripoff Without Reason Saint Louis, Missouri

ecLacleded Gas Company of Saint Louis turned on gas a short time ago. (07/09/2011) and the bill was just received. It clearly states that we have used 1 unit(therms).

Therms are $0.84225 for the first thirty therms, and $0.79390 for each additional therm.

We were told that there would be NO CHARGE for the initial activation of the service, as everything was already in place and we had no ill-history with Laclede Gas. We told them to go ahead and turn it on when we moved in, and that was the last I heard.

My current bill is broken down like this, keep in mind the only charge I was told about was the usage of the gas itself.

Service Initiation                                              $25.00
Charge for Gas Svc 07/09/11 to 08-11-11          $20.94
(includes a monthly service charge of                 $19.50
A Monthly ISRS charge of $.59, and Usage Charges**)
Ferguson Tax                                                    $1.34
     Subtotal - Current Utility Charges                  $47.28
     Total Current Charges                                   $47.28
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Account Balance                                              $47.28

Unmentioned Charges - $46.43

Naturally, you expect taxes and other 'surcharges', as we all see on our cellphone bills, so I researched the 'customer service fee' and Laclede mentions that this charge is 'like cable, a flat fee' and that is because they have 'service vehicles and other maintenance' to pay to maintain the gas lines. Normally that would be fairly understandable, although it was never agreed upon. The reason why, is because of that ISRS charge. The ISRS charge was initiated as a fee to help maintain the costs of repairing and maintaining the lines according to laclede, but they go on to say 'the infrastructure system replacement surcharge (ISRS) covers only a part of the expenses that the Company must incur to maintain and upgrade its system and to relocate facilities in connection with local, state and  federal public improvement projects and safety requirements.'

In other words, the ISRS doesn't cover enough and because the public will not agree to a hike in this fee, Laclede has simply decided to initiate a new fee without saying anything in order to collect the additional amount it feels we owe.

In case anyone is curious, these types of fines are the same legal issues that mobile carries ran into when they began charging exuberant amounts of 'surcharges' without having to break them down. Now our Customer Service Fee may be going to replace a piece of pipe down the road, or perhaps pay for Suzy Q's doctors appointment, but for that we may never know. I'm guessing an expanded helipad for vacation time.

Touche' Laclede. Touche'.