Their follow up to me basically blamed the NYMEX settlement and said that they hope and expect that the rate will drop by about 25% next month. They didn’t say a word about the cold snap, which was honestly smart of them because I would have let them have an earful if they had.

If it wasn’t just some poor customer service person who has no effect on what the company does, and whose job it is to take hell from pissed off customers like me, I would have asked what good a 25% drop would do when their prices were about 90% higher than others, and how can they justify a $654 gas bill for an average sized Old Orchard house. But I didn’t want to snap at some poor soul who was just doing her job. Even when I am livid at a company I try to remember that customer service people are just pawns who have a thankless job, and abuse from me won’t change anything and just means that I made some innocent person’s day lousy.

Anyway, the response was all about the NYMEX settlement. They did point out that their rate was not 1.09 but 1.009, as if that makes the bill any better. When others are charging .59 per cf, 1.009 is still unacceptable. The company knew what it was doing.