I just googled "Genesis Direct Debit Rip off" and this was the first pertinent site directed to. 2 1/2 years ago we switched from Meridian to Genesis (Genesis had a cheaper plan) - even the act of switching away was a keffuffle - Meridian kept on out posting bills (which we paid) for energy used (whilst Genesis did the same for the same period time - approx about 4 months), so in effect we paid our power bill twice for that period whilst Meridian argued (wouldn't "let" us go as their customer) with Genesis (who we were now signed up with) -Meridian finally let "us go" Guffaw (we eventually got a $600 payment of of them for overpayments) and I then decided to grant Genesis auto-debit of the bill....to date this has worked out well. We have always seemed to be in credit by approx the exact amout when the the monthly account comes in. I did tho start noticing a bit of a discrepancy creeping in about 6 months after our old meters where changed for the new fandangled (I guess "digital") ones. 2 months after they were changed we received a bill for $900 odd, for the month of Jan (we were also away for most of that month camping - by previous electrical usage records this is about 6X our monthly average (taken over a typical year - more than the middle of winter), knowing something was amiss I didn't get a great amount of help from Genesis when I queried it - only "read your meter" & "there must be something wrong...." we did find that our water heating cylinder was "amiss" which "seemed" to have used up a hell of a lot of kilowatt hours for the month unit's controlled supply, (just remember we wern't there for 3 weeks of it - and IT WAS DEFINITELY SWITCHED OFF (I can gaurantee that) so I took the plunge payed the bill, replaced water heater, and thought OK we've learnt a lesson......NOW I Find that Genesis have been direct debiting our bank account STILL for this absurd usage.....we are now $680 IN CREDIT AFTER Dec account (the usual ave monthly act of $130 has been deducted). I am feelingly a Tad ripped off and now it brings back memories of when my 84 y.o Mother-in-law died (5 years ago now) and we discovered she was in credit to Geneisis to the tune of $860.00 odd, and the trial of strength it took me (thro' her lawyer) as trustee of her will, to get the money transferred back to her estate (took over a year) !! BE WARNED !!

Genesis charge me double the usual amount for power because they have recently changed the old meter to a new digital one. They sent me a bill with two readings, one from old meter and the other one from the new meter. My usual usage is 250units, but this month I am being asked to pay another 619 units from my old meter that was replaced way before they did the actual readings of my new meter. Basically the want me to pay for the cost of new meter, this is how I see it. Absolutely not acceptable! They think they can milk us and charge anything they want. As customers we should be able to trust the professionalism of power companies, we have other things to worry about and reading the meter is not one of them!

I used to work in the industry. To all the people seething about the $4b "rip off" - check out the report itself, or if you can't be bothered, read the professional commentary on it. It's a red herring, badly reported by the media - a meaningless number. It actually doesn't have anything to do with the prices that you or I pay.

Sam #6 - it doesn't matter if you've used any power or not, any esimation will be washed up in the next bill so you will always end up paying the right amount. The 10% has no relationship to the estimation/read cycle.

Arthur #8 - in general, "corporate incompetence" is a redundancy, but then consumers are also to blame. If people voted with their feet, corporate behaviour would change in a hurry.

Sharon #18 - if power companies gave everyone a credit as a gesture of goodwill they'd go bankrupt! Contact's website say they have 600,000 customers, so a $125 credit to each would be a whopping $75 million dollar price tag per "gesture." That's a lot for goodwill, and ultimately people would end up paying through higher prices.

Jim #27 - if you read your own meter, it should cost you nothing. Just phone it in.

there not ripin u of on usage as u pt it. more likely urv got wireless and somebody is helpin them self 2 ur net

We had the same problem with Genesis last year. We got a $6000 electricity bill (we usually use $120 a month). It took them 3 or 4 months to sort out. It wasn't until our 'resolution case officer' left the company and we got another one that it got sorted. The second one took one look at it said it was impossible (which I'd been telling them for MONTHS) and wrote off the bill. Turns out they had been reading (and billing us for) the wrong meter for YEARS (we live in an apartment). They changed meter readers who then read the right one and just charged us the difference even though the meters numbers were COMPLETELY different! It took me 3 months to explain this to them and they (or we) could never find the original meter they had been reading. They even advised us at the beginning to get an electrician in immediately as they believed we had a dodgy hot water cylinder.we never got that bill refunded either!

Do you let *any* company access your account and withdraw payments automatically? If so, this could happen to you. Once they have your money, it's on you to get it back, and as we see time and time again it ain't easy. Sure there are incentives for allowing them to and it's easy, but i never allow these companies direct access to my accounts - that way, they can prove to me i owe the money before getting a single $!

Just this week -

We have had a huge problem with Genesis - upshot is that they disconnected the house without any warning (we were in the house at the time !!!) because of confusion of addresses (They think our address is different to what we do!)

We called them within 15 mins but the left us 27 hours before they turned it back on again. Being on pump water that left us with no heating, no running water and no flushing toilet for 27 hours !!!! The cold and damp of the house while we were waiting caused my partners asthma to play up and he ended up in hospital!!!!

We had to find another place to stay as our home was too cold to sleep in (being a old, small cottage in the country).

We are lodging a complaint also with the commission and have contacted Mr Brownlee (Minister) asking how a SOE power company can disconnect a occupied house without any notice to the tenants - Sadly it looks like not all power companies not learnt after the death of a consumer last year.

Genesis didn't give a damn.

Rebecca - we would love to talk to you about it if you are interested in a follow up!!!!

Re: Internet #10.

Best thing to do is to switch off your modem when you are not using the computer. Although you can't see anything running in the background windows can be downloading things. Windows update may be running, and/or other programs like Java, Adobe Acrobat and Antivirus can be downloading updates. I would also recommend checking your machine for viruses and spyware.

Another thing, is it a wireless modem? IE you can connect a laptop to it? If so change the wireless key to a more secure one, large increases in downloads with wireless modems can be due to them being unsecured or hacked into.

Cheers

We once got a bill from contact for nearly $1600 when our normal one is only around $170. This was based on an actual reading so we went to check the meter. Their reading was significantly different to what the meter actual said. It took several phone calls but eventually they accepted our reading as correct and sent someone to check the reading a week later.

In answer to Tony, actually, the Government do partly own at least one of the Power Companies. And of course, the Government gets a dividend from the profits, and of course, they also get money from GST. So, you need to vote with your wallet. Move on to another company. Never sign up to a long term contract. Use the Internet based facility to swap as often as you like. However, who here voted for National again? Obviously 50% of the people, despite the fact that the last time they were in, they privatised the Electricity market. And so, you can own a generation facility and sell electricity to consumers, but you can't own the connection to customers as well. Why was this done? Aha, just like with Telecom, it maximizes central Government revenues, and minimizes local government revenues. Example: Christchurch. In Christchurch, the power reticulation was owned by the local government. Power was relatively inexpensive, and the profits went back to the local community. Now the profit goes to the central government and the owners of the power companies. And we get ripped off. Just like the telecommuncations industry. Also, when the electricity industry was privatised, the government pretty much gave away billions of dollars of assets, never to be retrieved. And have the electricity generation companies reinvested the money into improving the infrastructure? Not one bit, which is why there are constant outages all over the place. So, when is it going to change?