Progress Energy Huge Deposit Required ,$600 despite Clean Payment History! Orlando Florida

I has told that the deposit price is not used from your credit score, but from the previous house's credit. ie..if the people who lived in the house before you never paid their bills, then building will have a high deposit. I moved into my house with a $400.00 deposit required and never had progress energy before. Unlike other states who work with you and allow you to change your "due" date... they refuse. I lost my job a few months ago and couldn't pay my $95.00 bill  ( i needed 1 extra week) they refused to help and shut off my power...they could have taken the money out of my deposit and still had $305.00 left of my money.   They are the worst!!!! 

Progress Energy does have a monolopy going. They are consumer unfriendly in every way possible. I had the same experience as far as a deposit. They required $750 on a single family home I purchased. My credit score at the time was over 750 and I had been their customer previously with no late payments etc. Have you experienced their frequent power outages? Every week, the power goes out for an hour to a couple of hours. When I lived on the other side opf town, where it was serviced by a different power company I can only remember 1 power outage in 3 years.