Laclede Gas Company ripoff St. Louis Missouri

Have to post on this!
With the struggling economy and me being in the home building buisness you prolly can guess how tough it is to pay the bills at the moment. I called Laclede gas to figure out why i am being charged $564.00 deposit after being a customer for 7 years and they tell me it is because i have been late on my payments. So is that how things work, when times are tough for certain people then it's ok to charge them more? And then they have the nerve to ask me to make a donation to "heat up St. Louis", so I reply by asking can i get help with my bill or maybe put some of the rediculous $564.00 deposit towards my bill and no, but he does reply by saying that I can pay a minimum $75.00 now and tack on the other $350.00 on next months bill and so on..... Hey gas man I still got to pay it and You still got $564.00 of mine I can't do a thing about!!!! Talk about stealing from the poor!

After reading the posts about Laclede Gas, I couldn't help but submit my own post. They are the biggest rip off artists of all utility companies! I'm a single mom who has struggled to make ends meet & unemployed at the present time. Laclede Gas takes sympathy on NO ONE! If you get behind on your bill, they will only make it more difficult for you to pay that bill by tacking on a whopping assessment fee to your account.

I can not even begin to understand what I'm being charged for. My bill states "PRIOR GAS BALANCE" as well as "PRIOR OTHER BALANCE" along with a whopping "DEPOSIT ASSESSMENT." I already know that I have a "PRIOR GAS BALANCE," so what's up with the PRIOR OTHER BALANCE? It wasn't the assessment fee because that was already listed on my bill as DEPOSIT ASSESSMENT. I had nearly a $400 deposit added to my account which made my bill 3 times what it already is & impossible for me to get caught up.

I have also been told by a very reliable source that any customers who were on budget billing through Laclede Gas were being overcharged. When I called Laclede Gas about this, I was told that they never did such a thing. So, I requested a copy of my budgeted payment along with a copy of what my actual gas usage was for each month. I was told a copy would be sent to me. To date, I have never seen those copies & I'm sure that I never will either.

I plan to move back into an all electric residence, just so that I never have to deal with Laclede Gas again. They are the biggest rip-offs yet!

I would like to see more people post comments about Laclede Gas Company. I know they're out there. It amazes me on how well they ripoff St. Louisians. Cause they can....we have no other options!