NW Natural ripoff! They have enrolled me into a program that charges me more money with out my written consent. Portland Oregon

This is an email that I am sending to any and all consumer advocates in Oregon including but not limited to the Oregon Attorney General, Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith as well as the Public Utility Commision of Oregon, so that this program will be terminated.

Here is that email:

I have recently been trying to better understand the NW Natural Gas company's WARM program so that I may decide if the program is right for me. I had been complacent in the past assuming that this program was put in place to better assist consumers and quite honestly it is my fault for making such an assumption. However now that I have had some free time to look into this program I have come to find that it boarders on what I believe to be trickery and thievery.


NW Natural makes (made) the initial choice to enroll me and most every customer into the program. In order to opt out of this program a customer must have replied to the notification of this program enrollment by a certain time, otherwise they would be locked into the program from November-May. My notification never came before that opt out date and I was enrolled into the program whether I wanted to or not. When the notification came it was to late for me to opt out. For me, and many others, the enrollment first occurred in early 2003. If you didn't catch it you were stuck until May 2004 and if a customer failed to opt out after May 2004, they would continue to be enrolled in the program again for the following November-May.

One of those customers would be me. I have no excuses as to why I did not opt out of the WARM program other than my lack of full knowledge of the program, and quite honestly I had other more important things to deal with in life besides my gas bill beyond paying it in full and on time.

After doing some research and contacting the PUC, I contacted NW Natural to find out if by terminating my service and then starting my service again as a new customer could I then be enrolled in their standard service program where you only pay for the amount of gas you use and not adjusted as is done through the WARM program ( Basically, if you are in the WARM program you pay more if the present temperatures are warmer than the 25 year average, and you pay less if the present temperatures are colder than the 25 year average).

I was informed that no, this would not be possible because you have to be a new customer in Oregon with no NW Natural service in the last 12 months. Well this began to smell fishy and sent bells off in that part of my brain the houses common sense. So I did some further research and came across this information that can be found at the following URL: http://www.nwnatural.com/about/investor/FFQ_2004/Q2/intro.html

I again contacted NW Natural to find out what type of adjustments, if any, occurred when the rates according to the WARM program adjustment begin to either make NW Natural lose money because the temperature are consistently colder than the 25 year average, or make unreasonable profits because the temperatures are warmer than the 25 year average (which obviously we are experiencing). The person I spoke with was not able to explain this to me because as she stated "the process was quite complicated and frankly above her skill of understanding" she then referred me to the PUC and offered to send me the information so that I may figure it out.

I agreed and I am waiting for that information. I then contacted the PUC to see what they could explain and yes it is quite complicated, however it seems to be structured so that an adjustment occurrs, but essentially it favors NW Natural. The temperature differences have to be fairly considerable so as to make the consumers bills rise above a certain percentage increase before an adjustment kicks in.

This doesn't seem to happen because the structure of the program's adjustment procedure makes it just high enough that an adjustment is possible but unlikely to occur in the consumers favor because the usual increase falls below the necessary percentage increase on a consumers bill so as to not warrant and adjustment. I admit I do not have all the information yet, but it appears as if it is structured so that an adjustment is possible but will rarely, if never happen because of the careful structuring of the program on the part of NW Natural.

The bottom line for me is that according to NW Natural on my last monthly bill, if I was not enrolled in the WARM program I would have paid $2.08 less last month if I was only paying according to standard service and only for the gas I used without the WARM program adjustment. I know this isn't that much but when you add up all the customers in the WARM program in Oregon, NW Natural has quite a profitable scam going.

The only reason the program was created was to benefit NW Natural and their shareholders. NW Natural according to the PUC were the ones who created this program and as you can see by the information I provided in the URL seems to be working quite well for NW Natural and it's share holders, but I fail to see how this benefits me and every other consumer who was shanghaied into this scam.

Essentially they created this program and enrolled me and many other Oregonians into the WARM program not because it would benefit us as customers, but to make them more money. This is demonstrated by their own financial statements. I should have been on top of this sooner and I am quite disgusted with myself for not paying closer attention when I initially found that I was forced into a program that locked me in whether I wanted to be in it or not. That should have sent of bells, whistles and fireworks that I could not ignore. Now it is costing me and many other Oregonians more money than we should be paying for a service that would be almost impossible to due with out.

I hope that this information merits your time and attention because although I am prepared to deal with this on my own, it would be better if I and all other Oregonians had some assistance to rectify this injustice.

Thank you for your time.

Bruce
Corvallis, Oregon
U.S.A.