Vectren Customer Service Complaints - page 2

Worst Service Ever!
I called because I noticed that my bill was doubling when I was hardly ever actively using services in the summer and had thermostat set at 76 degrees (they recommend 78). I live in a house that was remodelled in 2011. I had there energy tem out and the insolation was above code as well as energy efficiency of appliances. So I was shocked to learn that there was nothing they could do or offer any explanation. I had similar issue several winters back. My bill tripled the month I went on vacation. I was told that it could possibly be because of the fact I was not home. The CSR told me it takes more energy to maintain temps when people are not home. My home is 1500 SQ there is no way that 1 person can effect the temp that much! I was told that they would only suspect a problem with meter if the bill was lower than usual. In order to get someone to check it, I would have to submit a letter in writing. On top of that, they want to charge people who go solar in the future! So much for that benefit.

Vectran shut off me power my mistake over an hour ago. I called as soon as it was shut off. It was their mistake. My husband is on oxygen with stage 3 COPD. I have called them 3 times and have been told they will have it back on before 5pm!!!! The lady said they have no way to get ahold of a technician. Bullcrap!!!! This is ridiculous.

Six weeks ago new pipes were being installed on our street. The whole street was cut up making it impossible to park without the risk of cutting your tires. My seventy year old sister fell trying to get in my house. They were cutting up two blocks down I asked the "foreman" when they would finish my block,he thought I was recording him,I won't go into what he was doing, he was not just rude but kinda threatening refused to tell me. Called vectren got a follow-up call thought it was resolved. It's not.yesterday I thought they were finishing was told they were dumping excess asphalt in some of the biggest holes. Can't tell me "when he can get back to finish maybe two more weeks".why? Made another complaint never returned my call. What a mess.

I think Vectren should have two rates: One for customers who conserve energy and don't run their a/c all the time or turn their heat up past 75 and a rate for customers who run their a/c 24/7 even when it's 55-60 degrees and turn their heat up past 75. It's not fair to us conservative customers to have to pay the SAME RATE as non-conservative customers. An email reply would be appreciated.

Vectren has HORRIBLE customer service reps. My service was shut off and I had a payment arrangement on the account. When I called, I was told one thing to pay, then when I attempted to pay it, they gave a total different amount, charged a new deposit....and I'm wondering what happened to the deposit I originally paid!!! Then they said they would review the call that I had with the agent who stated the original amount. Well when they reviewed the call, they lied and said she told me something that benefits them. Okay, well, I wrote down her name and everything she said, after all, it is my home that needs the service. Why would I lie, when they clearly say the call is being monitored??!! They have a monopoly and that's why they do not care about their employees being rude, condescending, and ignorant towards customers. I wish there was a different provider and I'd cancel them!

Vectren Customer Service Representatives are rude and condescending. How can u cut some one gas off and it's been paid for two weeks they did the same thing last week and we caught them he called his supervisor and said it was a mistake on there end and the apologize for the inncovince to day gas off I been call-in since 8 am the said 0 balance they don't kno why it off account is under review. Last two months bills was over 400 and that bull cuz nobody ever here this month's bill due May 19 is 95$. Now my account shut down gas shut off and account under review until they call me back I can't even get any info. On my account that I payed for.vectren pisses me off. It would be nice to shower and actually cook some food cuz I am starved.

We bought a new house. We had service started on the new house. We had it turned off at our current house for two weeks later. We are taking a couple weeks to move. They turned our gas off the day we closed on our new house. I had two little babies and it was under 50 degrees when we woke up. No hot water. I called and they said they would need to investigate this because they can't turn it back on if we told them the wrong date. WE DIDN'T and it still wasn't an urgency on their end to get out and turn it off. I had to take off work just to go let them in the old house so they could turn it back on. They totally messed up and will not admit it.

I find Vectren Customer Service Representatives to be rude and condescending. I called with a simple question regarding a service that Vectren recently offered that apparently has been discontinued. Rather than be apologetic she answered as though I should have known. I truly wish there was another option in electric services in Evansville Indiana.

I am very concerned that Vectren is making a habit of moving their due date to cause people to miss paying the bill on time. My bill this month is due on the 14th of March. February bill was due on the 19th of February. I have been late 3 times in the past year due to paying late. I suspect that almost everyone receives income at a fixed time and pay their bills at that fixed time. The 14th due date is the earliest I have had a bill due ever. I don't think that this is Legal!! I wonder how many millions that they make on late fees this way.

So funny how vectren has had 1 positive comment which says all. Just because vectren only provider they have absolutely no care for customers. If dont like your job plenty of people out there that need and will do much better at it. Horrible service Horrible employees!

Representatives need to do their job right, & tell customers what they owe, instead of telling them everything is taken care of,

I am fed up with these inflated distribution fees!! Let me start with a quote from the Evansville Courier Press:
Vectren expects to increase these fees each six months so that by 2021 the average monthly fee will be between $13 and $14.

Kelley said the fee will not show up as a separate line item in gas bills. It will become part of the "Distribution and Service Charges" line item.

The charge applies to natural gas use only. Electricity bills are not affected.

Kelley said all natural gas customers will pay the same fee, regardless of their monthly gas usage.

Get that.....ALL CUSTOMERS WILL PAY THE SAME FEE!!!
My distribution fee is now more than the gas itself, with fee's in excess of $50!!!
I called and complained and was told by customer service that I had been given incorrect information. Really??????
Please everyone, this information needs investigated.

Tried to schedule a meter reading, apparently it is not possible to schedule a specific window of time because the hourly employee that reads your meter may have to take care of an emergency gas leak. You are expected to be home from 7-7 just in case the come.

Received our bill today. Gas usage=$2.30 Distribution fee=$26.10 Why didn't the customers receive personal information explaining that their customers are paying the distribution fees to fund the upgrade that is required? I had to do my own investigating on the internet to find out the explanation. It also said in a quote in the Courier Press "Vectren expects to increase these fees each six months so that by 2021 the average monthly fee will be between $13 and $14". How is it my fee is now over $26.00????

I missed one payment due to car repairs and they shut my service off with no notice but a cryptic message on my voicemail that didn't even identify the company. I thought it was a scam so I ignored it. Less than 24 hours later, my gas was shut off. I called and the representative was very rude and condescending. She talked to me like I was some piece of trash that doesn't pay their bills. Now, they want to charge me double the security deposit.

This company is unbelievable. Who in a world of technology only operates in snail mail world and can't process a auto draft payment change for 3 MONTHS! We moved to the area in August 2014 and paid our bill every month with a direct payment and in April we changed our bank and thus the auto draft payment--it takes 3 months to change the draft! Seriously - in 2015, 3 months?! That is incredible antiquated. But who knew, no email, NO CALL--just shut off your gas. I'm sure it's a money maker for them - extra $60 to turn it back on plus a $290 deposit. Supposedly there was a notice in the mail. They have a total monopoly, so they really don't care about customers, you're stuck. I would switch tomorrow if there was another option regardless of cost. All of that this is the ridiculous part. the new auto draft will go in effect July 3rd but they turned off the gas on June 30th. And then going to through the reinstatement they asked all the specifics about the property, they found it easy enough to turn the gas off, you'd think there wouldn't be an issue to find it to turn it back on--unbelievable?

If you have a chose, don't choose Vectren.

We need another eletric company. Its been awful the whole time. You wanna improve ur customers? Try giving a damn.

I have paid my Vectren bill in full each and every month since I first initiated the service. This month, I received a bill for twice the amount I typically pay. It notes that I have a "Adjustment" that is due by 5/16 or my service will be disconnected. When I contacted Vectren, the supervisor that I spoke with stated that this charge was "leftover" from an address in Columbus, IN that I moved out of and discontinued service from in December of 2014. She stated that the Vectren system had recently been updated, and that is why I was not notified of this balance until 5 months later. I was offered a payment plan, but Kim (the Vectren supervisor I spoke with) was not able to give me any specifics on why I was just now receiving this mysterious "Adjustment" charge or what exactly it was.

I have been informed that thousands of others have recently had similar issues with Vectren. I do not think that it is reasonable for a large entity, like Vectren, to demand such a payment in less than 2 weeks time. I am a full time graduate student, and work two part-time jobs to independently support myself. I simply cannot afford to pay this much at one time, nor do I want to set up a payment plan because this will mean that I will have a recurring monthly balance which jeopardizes the availability of my financial resources. Additionally, I do not think that I should be held financially responsible for the misdoings of Vectren employees.

Here's a similar hypothetical scenario: I work as a server. Unbeknownst to my customers, I serve them food/beverages and do not charge them for it. Five months later, my managers realize that I had not been charging my customers in full for the food and beverages they consumed. My managers then fire me. Should my customers be held immediately responsible for the goods they consumed, even though they thought they were paid for at the point of service? Should I, the employee who was misusing/mis-distributing goods, be held responsible? Or should the business who I was representing be held responsible? In my opinion, the latter two hold much more responsibility in the matter than the unknowing customer.

I am a stay at home mom. I dont not watch the news or even have time to read a paper! I just received my bill and about fell over!!!! 579.73!!!??? I called vectren and the lady said that it had been spoke of the in the paper and the news that our readers our of usage had been making mistakes!!!!!!!! Not happy at all! its due on the 2nd of May and it is almost our rent!!!!!!!! The only thing she said they could do was move the due date back!? I asked if they had a time machine and how were they actually finding out how much we were being under billed for she could not answer!?

Note that this is not a meter reader mistake or error, but this is something called curbing. Curbing is an industry term for when a meter reading sits on a curb and forces in a reading instead of reading the meter. This from my experience curbing is caused by either simply a lazy and dishonest meter reader or a meter reader under a lot of stress. Having two meter readers be fired for this (curbing is illegal) and having talked to several sources I have found out that the cause is Vectren putting the subcontractors and meter readers under an extremely great deal of stress causing meter readers to quit their subcontractors because of not being able to finish their new improved routes.

This stress is caused by Vectren's monkey wrenching of the meter readers' routes so badly that the most experience readers quit during the summer before any route changes based on the sample routes. Think three hundred meters in rural Smallville plus two hundred or so out in the country fields which was previously about two long days in good weather but Vectren's expensive mapping program says it can be done in three hours in snow and ice (which is when reading natural gas meters really counts). Other routes might really be very short such as two hours long now instead of the industry target of 4 hours long. If you have 10 meter readers working out of an office then one week you might have 10 reasonable routes two days, 8 routes which are very short routes one day, the last two days of the week 12 routes with most of the routes being of the 10+ hours long variety. Vectren has redone the routes twice already and is attempting to redo the routes yet again with likely the same terrible results.

Another thing about this that bothers me is that Vectren is now a service fee company which charges customers a fee for everything including a fee every month for reading the meter plus rereads and final readings are included in this cost. If the subcontractors do not get the reading then they do not get paid anything. Zero. Nada. Vectren has praised this mapping program to the subcontractors and meter readers as a way to save money which they have according to all the sources which I have talked with. The customer still has to pay the service fee for an estimated bill for the fault of the Vectren's inept management in Evansville (which really micro manages every little detail in every office across the company per my sources).

Indiana depending on the area has been reading as low as 50% to 85%-90% of the reads each month and Ohio has been better with around 90% or better per my sources. However they both were reading around 99% before Vectren made all of the changes without any input and totally against the expressed wishes of all of the subcontractors and meter readers. Vectren is still collecting the service fees for a service which can not consistently and reliably be provided currently (and no estimated bills do not require a $1 or $2 a month fee which will go into Vectren's coffers).

There are a lot more than 400 to 500 meters in Columbus and Greensburg that were affected. Curbing usually is done to part of a route (ie 1/3, 1/2, etc) and is done on a consistent basis (like on routes that were too long to ever finish in a day). Factor in 21 books (route days) a month with 250-500 meters a route. With two readers curbing the numbers likely will be in the thousands in each area.

Per one source the curbing was done in these cases by adding a fixed usage (which was too low) to the previous months reading for at least three months in some cases maybe four months. So your neighbor will have about the same usage month after month even if your neighbor has a house very different in size. This is why the bill was suddenly too high because it had been curbed months in a row then finally read. Note that it will take a few months for all the curbed reads to work themselves out into the system. This information is per my sources and my background.

Sorry to be long winded but by having worked in the utility collections previously for many years, having my parents be told there is no such thing as a radio remote gas meter (which the electric company begged to install to eliminate estimated bills years ago) and seeing Fox 59 news reports which seems to me to be a dishonest candy coating of the truth for Vectren's saving face sake without any real independent research into the matter.

P.S. So try contacting Miranda and Jerry Friend whom are taking complaint signatures plus Joe Rust featured on the Fox 59 news cast segments. Please make sure that you are getting a proper actual meter read each and every meter especially customers without dogs, fences and scrubs. By the Grace of God may we have Vectren fix this problem so that pensioners, disabled, and other persons on a fixed income can receive their actual bills by allowing the subcontractors and meter readers to do their job. Have a Blessed Day.

Our corporate bill just jumped by over 10x for the 3/5-4/7 billing period as compared to the previous winter months. I requested a re-reading. Impossible that our usage spiked in March. We are near Columbus, IN.

My son's March bill went up 200.00$ in one month. March wasn't even that cold. Again same as Greensburg with meter read error. This is not right

Vectren admits to me on the phone TODAY 3/30/2015 that yes, HUMAN ERROR is the reason my usage bill from 1/21/15 to 02/19/15 was $66.42 reading only 65 therms NOT estimated which is why that bill was only $66.42 and this months March we are being billed for 234 therms from 2/19/2015 to 3/19/2015 making our total bill $189.62. I explain to the customer service rep on the end of the phone that it is not fair to have to pay this, and how am I to believe my reading ever? She tells me Vectren does a lot of estimating and that a tech doesn't actually read my meter every month anyway. WTF ARE WE PAYING FOR PEOPLE!?????!!! The rep continues to blame me and say "well you used it" I explain to her that's the highest bill we've had since we moved into our house in 2011 and replaced our furnace in 2013 to an 80% efficient furnace. NOTHING! Just couldn't comprehend that fact.

I am waiting for my March billing but am seeing lots of complaints in the Columbus Indiana area about huge bills. I expect I will too see one. Is there anything that can be done about this? These big companies making error's and then passing it on to people that had no idea the past billing was wrong. I suppose they will use the same excuse as Greensburg.

About 450-500 residents in my area (Greensburg,Indiana) are now being charge anywhere from triple to quadruple their usual gas bill. The reasoning behind this when Vectren was contacted about is because the meter reader they contracted to do the readings was under reading the meter for the last who knows how many months. Now residents are force to pay a huge bill to make up for the charges. I usually have a 75 to 90 dollar gas bill, the bill for the month is now nearly 400. Vectren will not do anything about this other than take payments. It was not the customer's fault that this happened, yet we are the ones that have to pay for the mistake.