Nation's Electric Company Billing Scam on Consumers

OK. I know they're out there. I'll look today. I'm pretty good at searching for stuff. Meanwhile, check the Cole-Parmer website. They have all kindsa stuff. They have heat tapes that go over a thousand degrees.

Do a Google search for these three => home power steam

That looks like a good page to find answers. I'm reading now about Mike Brown, linked from that search page. Here is a page with good starter information =>

http://www.mikebrownsolutions.com/stmpwr.htm

This is very interesting. It looks like Mike Brown sells them already assembled => http://www.mikebrownsolutions.com/mbsteam.htm => where he says the 2-cylinder engine is best because whenever it comes to a stop it can be restarted easily. It will produce 1500 watts of electric PLUS the hot exhaust can heat your home... a twofer. I haven't come to a price list yet.

But his appear to be one of many. Home Depot sells steam engine generators also, looks like. I never noticed em but they appear to be sold most anywhere.

You have an amazing story and caught them really good. I don't know right off where you buy a wood-fired generator. My bill here was real bad this winter. They finally got a fellow qualified to trouble shoot the heatpump. It had a shorted wire and the thermostat inside was wired backwards. One month I was billed over $7.00 a day.

Since they fixed it I'm back down to $2.50, but for those 6 months it hit a total of $1159. For one person, breakers turned off. And no smart meter. Just smart thieves who know residents here haven't the help of a lawyer.

What you COULD do jstmean is you could get a Savonius-style wind generator to power up your less-demanding circuits, lights and radio, TV, living room, hall. Then use the big generator for your heavy appliance circuits. You could lower the amt of wood you need significantly.

If I lived out your way we could build one of my solar engines too. They will crank out a great deal more current than solar panels. It would require a generator, minus the wood portion. The advantage of my solar engine is it pulls a trick that causes power magnification.

I have read also that there are some scientists working on a Multi-Laser that fires many lasers together to create a "Mini-Sun", so once they get that going we should see a lot of celebrating going on. Worldwide.

Well, if you could somehow wrangle yourself a small water tank up in the air on a good frame ... you could run your well pump one time a week and turn it off in between. My money is on the water and the pump.

Then your new wood-fired steam generator would be more effective.

I am not familiar with that device. It was a real brain strain just coming up with yellow-red plug things. Uhm, any transformer or motor has windings and they are coated with stuff to keep them apart. I wouldn't be quite so quick to accuse them of messing one up. If your place is real far out it's possible they have raised your rate to pay for the distance.

It looks like you're being charged 200-300% normal at least. If you raise too much a stink they might search for a reason not to be required to service you at all.

Uhm, if your place is using such a small amount, what with you turning everything off, seems like to me you might be better off to have the service turned off and start using a backup generator, to heck with them.

Since you are running a well pump that most likely has a 220 volt motor, that could be your problem. If you have a water leak somewhere the 220V pump would run more often.

Well pumps are real energy hogs.

I was just checking did anything we told you help? I think you should invest in a generator. It might cost you now but in the long run you will save money. I gave you a place to go to Heartland America. I know about them because I bit off more than I can chew. I started feeding three feral cats and now they are multiplying. I could kick myself for actually feeding them can cat food I should have stuck with Kibble(dry) Two of the siamese cats had kittens my friend usually traps them and gets them fixed and takes them to a feral cat colony where people come and feed them everyday. Lately she has not been very dependable, and I do not have the heart to call the Humane society they
will euthanize them. And I could not live with myself if that happened. I bought two traps from Heartland and my friend told me to trap them and she will come and pick them up but she wants me to leave them in the traps for a couple days until has the time to come for them. One of the siamese cats or should I say kittens cause they are both babies still hows that kittens having kittens she is almost tamed she lets me pet her while I put the food down for her she is real beautiful and I know I can find her a home with some one who knows a lot about cats. I have contacted a lot of feral cat places they sent me paper work with a lot of places to get help but my friend across the street (Senior Citizen) niece said she would call them cause her Aunt has a lot of feral cats to and her aunt by accident threw them away and now they will not give me anymore papers I expalined what happened but they still will not.

Well, you are not the only one being told that, using the extry cold weather as a cover for their grabbing your money. You need to turn EVERYTHING off and if the meter is still running you need to find out what the heck it is. I suggest the aid of an electrician if you aren't one. First, prove something is running when everything is off. You can use one of those little yellow-red plugs to see which outlet is still on.

You also could have an electric motor messed up, like the washing machine or dryer. It could have a short and be sitting there half turned on.

If you lack a plug-in detector just carry a table lamp or radio around, that'll work for the outlets.

" yellow-red plugs to see which"

when it comes to electricity, I am completely ignorant. Do you have a picture?

Yea,gravity man is right get a generator, they have them at reasonable price at heartland america.

I do not understand I unplug my microwave and other appliances but I do not like to unplug my cable because it takes about 30 minutes to get the tv guide and the names of the channels back.

Probably a lot of the electronic information is stored in ram memory. When ram loses power it loses everything it has stored on it. The cable company here says always leave the box turned on. I gave up my cable long ago. It was costing me $1350 a year, more than one month disability check. Plus they never showed decent programming.

For the microwave I was turning off the circuit box breaker. The microwave was cheap a gift actually, got good service out of it for 7 years. It died recently. I doubt from turning off the power.

The reason I have cable is because I like Broad brand internet those DSL and Dial up is terrible considering my son likes to play war craft. If I can get Direct TV and those others which are cheaper with a better internet connection I would. I pay $121.00 monthly for basic cable and basic Broad Band internet which before Time Warner took over I only paid $80.00 a month for both.

I have cable broadband but no TV and then they gave me a $6 a month local calls only phone with it. Total about $36. Low cost phone for being on disability. I might be moving soon so I'm munching out what I have not going to the store, a good thing since I'm down to $120 anyway. My health has been making some good improvements lately so I'm in hopes going back to work. Either as a Dunkin' Donut baker or driving a rig.

DSL tacks on lots of timed charges here. It's a bad way to go, we tried it once. We had to pay for a 4-volt line and a box and per minute charges after 1-2 hours as I recall. It was a real bummer.

You know what you can do? You can contact the Better Business Bureau, and make a complaint. I did for a bank and two days later the bank contacted me and tried to work with me to fix the problem. Just type Better Business Bureau in google and file a complaint they are there for the consumer.

Did you ever think of getting a generator? I know that Heartland America always charges less than they run for at least with a generator you should be paying way less on your electric bill. You can find Heartland america on line type it in google and then type in generator on their website search engine. But I would try the Better Business bureau they will work with you better they do not like you to call them.But if they give you more trouble after then contact the Better business bureau again. But after you contact them the first time they should not give you trouble ever again, because they know you will call them again.

I wonder where that ad came from I was on the page where the generators were. This 1000 watt generators go for $799.00 but heartland sells them for $129.00 good price.

I hope the information I gave you about the Better Business Bureau and where to get the generators at a good price helps you. Let me know how it goes I would call teh better business better bureau as soon as possible.

I'm real sorry and definitely empathetic to hear all that. Uhm, they're doing the same trick the oil companies pulled with high gas prices that helped them amass a fortune. I think the oil companies got ahead something close to a trillion bucks.

You need a plan. It depends on where you live. If your own home you can do anything you want but if an apartment they require electric service. In Virginia last year the power company started kicking their rates higher like they were a Hell's Angel kickstarting their motorcycle. My bill reached up to $7.00 a day. It's lower now.

But if you are situated where you can do what you want, since the price of natural, bottled and/or propane gas has become so affordable... IF you could purchase an electric generator to run off of one of them I imagine you would save lots.

Most of your "backup" generators use diesel fuel #2 (kerosene is #1, treated with a few extra chemicals to keep it from freezing, flows better). Technically speaking it is lawful to make diesel fuel from food scraps lawn leaves and other organic stuff... and I have seen a low cost system sold online to do so. Can't mess around with gasoline production at home because it's rated a dangerous explosive. Diesel fuel isn't like that (volatile).

There's actually some very simple solar collector systems a person can set up, south facing is best. If you lack the money to purchase these things it's very possible someone in your area might rent them out so much a month. Edison eh? If that means you're in New Jersey where there's right much overcast clouds and just plain haze you might not benefit a lot from solar.

Write me a mail and we'll continue this discussion.

A petition? Petitions are a very slow and many times ineffective tool. When the people selling produce know no one else sells produce they have ya up against the wall waiting for the bullet. Gas would be right cheap there seems to be glut of it right now that might last a few years, maybe even provide decades of fuel savings.

I like using natural energy that was put in place millenia ago by a bountiful Creator who started all this going, my opinion.

There was an inventor named Floyd Sweet who built a neat little system back in 1987. It collected invisible radiation that comes from all the suns in the universe, the cosmic radiation frequencies. His "Triode Vacuum Amplifier" picked up the energy and funneled it out pure house current at 60 Hz.

It looks like the electric companies know their days of being in business are limited as the Internet community becomes self aware of these many natural energies... so they're trying to pack their pockets as full as they can get em, with your money.

A number of inventors including myself are designing spinning devices we call Gravity Wheels and even one inventor has already gotten one to work. But his system is 12 feet high and weighs 9,000 pounds, more for a small factory perhaps than anyone's home. His might cost over $100,000 when it reaches production. His uses a bit more than just gravity. His uses centrifugal force to power up some car shocks.

Right ingenious actually. We others have made some good progress towards a home size product.

I live in Los Angeles, and we own our own home(Still paying Chase) but the fact is the way the economy is My son and I are on disability and my common-law is getting unemployment he barely gets enough to pay the bank fore the house payment, And I'm stuck with paying everything else with the little bit of money disability gives my son and I.

I think a lot has to do with these smart meters they put in. I know my bill is twice as much and in a small town in Texas they are complaining about it saying that those smart meters are tripling their bill, I bet that the electric companies know all about those so called smart meters ripping people off. Everyone who has problems with their electric company should complain to the Better business bureau they are there for the consumer. One older lady who lives by her self in that small Texas town said she always
unplugs all her electric equipment when not in use like her microwave her TV everything they are all energy eaters, and her bill used to be $20.00 a month because of it and now her bills is more than a hundred because of those smart meters, you know the ones that transmits our usage to the company, so their workers do not have to come and read our meters.

Hey, do you know anything about growing Wheatgrass? I bought everything I need organic sprouting seeds and soil and all that I'm having trouble at finding a easy way to sprout the seeds. They are going to be used as a juice I tried it before at a juice bar and boy did i get a boost of energy and it last all day without that dragging feeling you get from coffee and those energy drinks. And it is suppose to have a lot of health benefits. I even bought the juicer the hand crank one at a reasonable price since the electric ones go for a couple hundred. At least it will save me some on my electric bill.

I've been trying a energy drink called Monster Hitman and it actually works, but $2 for a smallish can. I pour it into a big jar of water makes it last, good taste too. I did not know a hand crank juicer was available. Wow, thanks for the tip. Los Angeles must sell everything.

My hand crank can opener broke a couple months ago, surprised the heck outta me. I've never seen one break before. I thought they lasted forever. The microwave died then... but what th heck, I got 7 years reliable use from it!

I haven't had any bean sprouts or wheatgrass or nuthin' like that in a long time. My wife grew some back around 1970 and I recall what a health boost they were. Tofu, she found out how to fry it so it tasted just like scrambled eggs. It's very unfortunate she didn't stick with healthy foods because my health took a serious dive a couple years later. Maybe not so much if we had stuck with it.

I've been hit with Lyme's twice, the last time real bad. It was a 4 months of hell experience, caused my jaws to almost lock up. They got all proliferated into my spine, brain, and fluids. I should've went to the hospital but I'm not like that. After 4 months they retreated into a dormant hibernation state. When I get extra stressed out it seems to give the darn things a Wakeup call.

I had that happen a week ago + my PTSD had to jump on the wagon for good measure.

I imagine everybody and their brother knows more about growing wheatgrass and such than I do. I mixed up some Green Food Feast from Wilderness Family Naturals up in Minnesota recently, added some Oxy-Nectar and Aloe Vera (capos) powder for extra fast healing. I mixed it with Wheat Germ oil and Olive oil and some water, rolled em up into small cigar shapes and swallow a couple a day. Some refrigerator mold grew on them so I wash it off... leaves a little inside but I said what th heck, stomach acids will take care of it. Maybe it's penicillin. I can use some of that too.

I just checked my electric bill and it was $75.27 for last month but when you subtract all the other things they charge me it only comes out to $45.00. Here is all they charge me for it says your charges include $4.75 for transmission charges, $20.08 for distribution charges and 0.38 for nuclear decommissioning charges $4.75 conservation incentive adjustment, $3.68 public purpose programs charge, 0.87 for new system generation charge. and your charges include $4.60 competition charge(What Competition?)
And then it goes like this basic charge 29 days x $0.02300 is $0.67 and care energy winter
Tier 1 (within Baseline) 305 kWh x $0.00730 = $2.23
Tier 2 (up to 30% ) 92 kWh x $0.02865 = $2.64
Tier 3 (31% to 100) 190 kWh x 0.10319= $19.61
Generation charge
DWR
Energy winter 162 kWh x 0.003763 = $6.10
SCE
Care energy winter
Tier 1 (within baseline) 221 kWh x0.9564 = $21.14
Energy Winter
Tier 2 (up to 30%) 67 kWh x0.09564 =$6.41
Tier 3 (31% to 100%) 137 kWH x0.09564 = $13.10
Sub total of new charges $71.90
Los Angeles Co uut $3.24
State tax $0.13
Your new charges $75.27

Can you tell me what this means what are all these extra
charge for I do not understand them. And what gives them the okay
to charge us a competition charge when there is no competition?
If you can explain this all to me I would appreciate it. It seems that
they are trying to charge us for anything for their benefit. You know
like the Hospitals charge you $40.00 for a box of Tissue.

No way!! I'm not that smart. But the competition charge is easy! That's to work up new strategies to keep out any competitors. So you're paying about $18.75 a week. That isn't bad, plus two people cut in half. This lower bill will give you a while to work up a PLAN for next winter so they don't bury you again.

With a small steam engine and generator you could be getting right much house heat and running your refrigerator and washer-dryer circuits, something like that. Thing is though it has to be outside, and somebody could steal it. So you would want to have it in a blocked up storage shed, where you could also keep the wood dry. That is, if you want to mess with it.

Seems like what you could use at your location would be a solar box (heat trap) with a small windmill, and both of em turning the same generator. That would be more automatic and less fuss. I think there's some companies out in your neck of the woods selling some nice wind systems, Savonius-style. They spin no matter what direction the wind blows.

You mean if we put our own solar panels in the electric company's power lines will interfer with them? Here is another problem our whole block has to deal with right behind my house there is a lot that belongs to the electric company they have those big metal towers on there and they used to rent it to a place that sold plants but now they it is empty besides the towers which are still there, and for a long time they would not cut the grass and when they did our (whole block) was infested with fleas even in our house, had to put a lot of stuff to kill them in our house and yard. There used to be a lot of oppossums there but the border brothers who took over the city would catch them and boil them alive and eat them. Now that they are all gone and we also live by a mexican catering place we get rats now. I got one in my kitchen who I'm trying to catch with traps he is real smart. He has also ate all my plastic pipes on my washer and refrigerator they say he is trying to get water. I have cats and he even is careful not to get caught by them. I'm just wondering when the electric company is going to cut the grass again and we will have all these fleas again. At least when the oppossums were around they ate the rats and kept their numbers down.I do not think the catering place is disposing their left over food right and that is what attracts them and then when they get over populated they spread out. Rats carry diseases sometimes I think I should call the health department on both of them but because they have money they will no doubt pay some one off in Government so they will win. You know what I do not understand how the Democrats and Republicans messed up the economy and people still vote for them. I'm not no more I'm turning Libertarian. I think those democrats and Republicans should learn they even though they think they can run things by getting paid off by big corporations that we still hold the key to vote them out. Because the Tax payers actually
are the ones who pay their checks. Do you think I'm right?

It is more difficult to get a solar power supply synchonized with the power company so it costs more money to do that. About 30% of your power bill goes to heating your water so what you could do a lot easier and less $$$ money is just to rig the solar to heat the water tank, and not have to mess with any synchonizing equipment at all.

Rats are a persistent little rodent but you should be able to get some traps. Very sad how they chewed on the pipes. I worked in a seafood restaurant s a teen and one night when everyone was gone the iced tea machine sprung a leak. The next morning Dad & I came in and some of the rats had drowned. He told me rats can't swim. There was only a couple inches deep of water on the floor and they couldn't keep their head up enough and drowned to death.

I imagine a rat has such small legs and a big torso they just can't hack water. Maybe you could buy one of those tasers and fix a trap with some food in it and trigger the taser. They might already sell something like that. Rats aren't invincible.

Wheatgrass is highly touted but I've heard of one other a weed actually, called Purslane, bigger lift than wheatgrass, grows anywhere. It's supposedly the 8th most prolific weed in the world, lots of cell energy. People all over the world have used Purslane for centuries. In fact Purslane has been given different names in different countries.

Voting people out results in others like them being voted in. Once the new man [or woman] gets voted in and finds out the true complexities involved many times they can't do any more than the one who just got voted out. This world & planet needs a lot more help than any mortal can supply.

We have a lot bigger problems than rats. However, since your rats are halfways domesticated and not crawling around in dumpsters the chances of giving you a disease are a lot less. I imagine they're almost as clean as a house cat. Sounds like they're eating good in the abandoned lot also over at the take out place.

Hmm. Sounds like they are living the Life of Riley.

Thank you for your help and I will check into the things you wrote about. I only wish their were more people like you in this world that like to help people. And God Bless you

Hmm, well, I think God blessed me already, to help you! Any time you want drop me a mailbox letter. I'd like to hear how you're doing.

It's Prom Day every day for the nation's power companies they're spiking the punch bowl -every second of the day- with excessively elevated trickle current. They party on like drunken sailors grabbing at port-of-call native virgin gals. The power companies have discovered they can semi-power up your appliances around the clock.

The power companies have discovered they can semi-power up your appliances around the clock. Appliances that are turned off are partly being kept turned on $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Thanks. You make good points. Your entire hard drive can be copied w/out the power even on too. It's a master controller kind of world sometimes. When we moved in here in 2003 it was a drought going on but it started raining, the dam was spilling over so much water. But the apartments got used to making extra money on the side from 1200 residents.

So I conducted a "field test" by not using but a scrap of water for a whole month and longer, to find out if they would continue billing us $25 and more a month. They did. I told them how I figured out they were wrong about my water bill and they reacted very upset that a stupid old guy on disability could catch them with their drawers down.

Six months ago (finally) the Law caught up with them and made them start paying the water out of the Rent monies instead of tacking it on.

So I did the same thing to the APCO service, cutting off all the breaker switches, except this time it worked and drove my bill down because I didn't have the apartment management keeping the number from my eyes. It's all right there in the picture of my Usage History.

Simply by exceeding their own 5% limit they have been shoving so much electric current into the apartment it was multiplying the "trickle current" into a lot higher range than anyone has suspected could happen, and that is what this alert post is about.

This mistake or trick or scam, call it whatever ya want, is very likely happening across the board to all American electric company customers.

What really got digging under my fingernails was how their lineman came out here and had so many extraneous explanations why I was wrong. He stood right here as he was taking the cover on & off the box, explaining to me how the power company never makes mistakes because they have a self-imposed limit not to exceed 5% over. Well, 5% of 220 volts brings you a ceiling of 231 volts.

Yep, and still he talked back in my face over & over, even though his own instrument said 248 Volts!!!!

He just fed me one well-rehearsed line after another to snow me under with his knowledge, practiced knowledge. I imagine he has talked many power customers down that way but I had a headache and wasn't up to the little twerp feeding me a plate of hog manure.

Appalachian Power awakened the sleeping giant in me.
Appalachian Power awakened the sleeping giant in me.
Appalachian Power awakened the sleeping giant in me.
Appalachian Power awakened the sleeping giant in me.