Florida Power & Light [FPL] review: disconnection 5

I'm not sure if you guys would be interested in airing this or not but I've just had a serious experience with FPL and wondered if anyone had contacted you with the same/similar issue regarding customer service with them.

On Oct 4 the payment extension that I got through FPL was due in the amount of $363.668. I did not get paid until Oct 6 and when I realized this error I called them and asked if they could extend my time only 2 days until I got paid. I was told that could not be done. They could not physically extend my extension and if I didn't make my payment that day my power would be turned off. I explained to her that I didn't have the funds to do this with until Thursday the 6th. She then proceeded to tell me that it takes 2 days to reach my account and that I should be OK paying it that day. I reluctantly paid this hoping it would wait until Thursday to hit my account. I was wrong! It actually reach my account the very next day. I was unaware of this until I accessed my bank account on Thursday to check my deposit and see if their payment had cleared or was pending or had even reached my bank yet. It had and was already in the process of being returned. I immediately called FPL and explained the problem and was told by this customer service rep that she would note my account and when I asked her if I could go ahead and make that payment then I was told no that I had to wait for an additional final notice that would have the $363.68 which was September's bill along with October's bill of $423.42 that I could then file an extension for. Looking everyday in the mail for this so that we could make that payment and extend the other, we never received that final notice. My husband is out of work the entire month of September and we play catch up the next few months.

Moving to today Oct 27. My son is at home, a minor, but old enough to be home alone, receives a knock on the door and it is FPL looking for my husband or myself. We were both working. The tech handed my son the disconnect notice and proceeded to turn our power off. He called and told me and I immediately called FPL again and tried to explain the situation at hand and plead my case and explain that I was told by their rep to pay the bill without having the funds in my account and that I was then told by another one of their reps to wait for a bill that never arrived. I also explained that had I not been told to pay the first bill without having the funds and was just extended the 2 day grace that I was asking for that I would not be on the phone with them right now and I would still have power. They didn't care that their reps messed up and gave me inappropriate advice. We were also behind on our rent and I had to call my landlord and ask her not to deposit my rent check that I was just able to pay yesterday, as I had to use this money for FPL and they wanted the entire amount of $787.10. So now we are at risk for losing our place to live and are working on being 2 months behind with our landlord. I'm now also afraid that they are going to charge us an additional deposit due to the lateness and disconnection of our power that we are already struggling to pay now. So now my husband and children are sitting in the dark tonite with no power as FPL also has a 24 hour turn around time to reconnect your power. I also called them multiple times after paying the amount they requested to get my power turned back on to make sure that it would be turned back on tonite and I was advised that their techs work until 9 or 10 pm and then start again at 7am the next day. I contact my family at 930 to see if the power had been reconnected and I was advised it had not. Then my last call to them tonite I was told that they were done for the night and that they have my work order for it to be turned back on but that they had until 5:37 the following day as that was the time I made my payment to them. So as they sit there tonite without power FPL sits there with my money and the capabilities to turn it back on but did not. We are extremely frustrated as they had enough techs out to come turn it off but not enough to make sure that it was back on in a decent amount of time. I feel that they are doing it on purpose as to teach us/me a lesson as parts of my conversation with them were not very nice from my end.

Have you had anyone contact you reference FPL's customer service and their inadequate customer service? I'm just curious as I googled FPL lawsuits/complaints and there are several and I am uncertain how to handle this now.

Thank you in advance for any help you might have on this situation and where I can get help for possible future problems that we might encounter.

Kim Wilson

Manatee County Resident

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