minusonebit

I came home this afternoon from work and I thought "Damn, the condo is quiet." Usually, in any inhabited building, there is some sort of noise. The hum of the furnace, the fridge or in my case, the battery backup systems for the computers. But none of that sound. At first, didn't think anything of it. Then I heard am impatient "beep-beep-beep-beep", the sound of the low battery alarm on a APC UPS.

So the electric was out.

I got out the phone book, called the phone company from my cell and asked them why. They said they shut me off for non payment. WTF? I just moved here, and they hadn't sent me a bill yet. They told me "We've been sending your bills to Vegas just like you told us to". I explained to them that I specifically told them NOT to send bills there, but rather it was an alternate address that I MAY have them send bills to in the future. I have a MBE box in Vegas, when I travel, they forward important mail to me when I am on the road. Then they also said "And you never sent the deposit of $280, either." (Which they prolly made me pay since I refused to give them my socialist slave state number). I said, "Yeah, I know. You never sent me the form I was supposed to send it back with that you told me to expect."

Being that this was my first bill and with the holidays, I figured they were slow getting them out. After all, AT&T hasn't gotten me my first bill yet, either. I even called my landlord and asked him if he was getting the bills a couple of days ago, he said no as I did expect it very soon. It never occurred to me that they would be sending it exactly where I told them not to send it.

They put me on hold, claimed to listen to the call recording of me ordering service and came back on the line and told me that I told them to send the bills there, and that if I wanted my service on, I would need to pay the bill ($17) plus the deposit ($280) plus a disconnection fee ($100) plus a reconnection fee ($100). Furthermore, since they shut me off at 3PM on Friday and I didn't get home until 5 PM to find out about it and they close at 6PM, I had only an hour to drive all the way into the city, get money and come back and pay them. Not gonna happen with traffic.

Then the bitch explained that if I didn't pay them by 6 PM tonight, they wouldn't turn me on until Monday even if I paid over the weekend. In most states thats illegal, going to have to look into the situation here. Now thats a dirty trick in my book, even AT&T shuts you off on Monday most of the time so that they have all week to collect their damn fees. Add on top of it that this wasn't my fault, and it was too much to take. So basically, they mailed the bill to the wrong fucking address and they didn't give a damn, sucks to be you. This is the kind of service you get when the power company is allowed to have a monopoly.

The power company pissed me off so bad I considered tying a chain to the power box that serves the whole block, the other end to my van and testing out my new high performance transmission's low gear. But I didn't. first, I went around the the power meters, as sometimes they just throw your breaker and all you have to do is turn it back on to "reconnect" your service. No dice, they had already removed the entire fucking power meter and covered it with a blank. So I decided I'd use the power inverters in the van and power what needed powered off those.

Now, at my condo, outside my front door, we all have an external storage closet type thing. I went to the storage closet outside the front door to look for an extension cord to run from the van inside to get the UPS units on AC power using the inverters. As I went into the unit, I hit the light switch out of habit. Surprisingly, the light lit up, which I was not expecting at all. After all, they removed my fucking meter. After a moment, an idea dawned on me. And a grin burst out from ear to ear, and here is what I looked like:



If my meter was removed and my power off... then who was paying for the light in my storage closet? And as that thought came back to me, I stepped outside and into the night. I noticed something I hadn't noticed before: the whole front of the building was dark. None of the outside lights were on. They all worked last night. And every other night. But not tonight. This was no coincidence, I thought and as I thought about this, I didn't notice but I began humming the Grinch song... and my smile kept growing and growing.



What was going on here is I was paying for everyone's outside lights. Our HOA is very specific about this, although the lights are community property, we are to replace the bulbs if they burn out and they are to pay for the power.

It was then, that I saw the solution to my power problem. I was going to exact a charge upon my HOA for their crimes against me (stealing my power). I went down to Wal-Mart and picked up one of those adapters that turns a light socket into a power outlet, ran my extension cord out to my closet, carefully concealing it behind the bushes and than inside the condo I put a couple of splitters in and plugged in two space heaters, my radio, the main line for each of the 4 APCs and several lights. Then I ran another cord into the kitchen and plugged the fridge in.

One good deed does deserve another, right?

---

So, I would like to offer a great big, huge FUCK YOU to both the power company and the HOA. Both of you are going to get whats coming to you. The HOA is gonna have some very angry condo owners soon, as I went to the next building over, and with the permission of the owner of that unit, threw his main breaker and sure enough the whole front of his building went dark. So the HOA is making the person in Unit 3 of every building pay for the "community" lights which we all also pay an HOA assessment for. Pretty damn slick. But the secret is out now and I am going to make sure the whole complex knows our HOA is screwing us over.

And when I do finally get around to paying that bill and the bullshit deposit, its going to be paid in pennies. And then we'll see about getting those fraudulent disconnect/reconnect fees taken care of.

Motherfuckers, you may have won the first battle (and only because you had the element of surprise on your side) but motherfuckers I will win every other battle and the fucking war.

TurboAngel

Wow that's a lot to read.

;)

spacedog

I don't get it? Why did you call the phone company to bitch about electric service?

Bliggo

Can you rephrase that in the form of a question?

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Furious_Male

Damn all that for a $17 bill.

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Spunky

That was a brilliant idea..good find and hope it gets resolved soon

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WarChild

Sweet jesus are you ever trash.

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HighSociety

LOL holy fuck my eyes hurt from reading all that, congrats on the find though

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minusonebit

Its a fucking storage closet. What did you expect to be hanging from the ceiling to illuminate the place, a crystal chandelier?

Typo, I meant electric "cooperative". God, what a fraud that is. Put the word cooperative in the name of a company that is anything but.

notabook

Just to let you know they can refuse your payment if you pay in pennies. They do not have to accept it and often times will not.

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sicone

Sucks to be you, but they are in the right.

Anyways.. best of luck getting this resolved ASAP

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baddog

Because he is a few bits short of a byte.

Nismo

Hold on a sec....you drive a van?

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baddog

Reminds me of a story (better than his).

I was divorcing my first wife, and while most things in the settlement I did not have a problem with, the Court ordering me to pay $250 to her attorney kind of pissed me off, so I decided I would pay him in pennies.

I had to order $250 in pennies from my bank, which they provided. I then went home and broke open the rolls, emptying the rolls into a pillow case. I then proceeded to her lawyer's office.

I was pretty dismayed when I pulled up in front and saw it was an older, three story building, meaning there was no elevator. Damn. Also, no parking in front of the building.

You really don't realize how heavy $250 is until you have to carry them in a pillow case, a city block, and up two flights of stairs.

To say the attorney was not amused would be an understatement. He reminded me that the judge probably had less of a sense of humor than he, and would probably find me in contempt if he found out about my "prank."

I then carried the bag down two flights of stairs, and a city block, back to my truck.

JFK

pennies are legal currency, however, there is a law governing how much you can tender at any one time

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BitAudioVideo

so which unit is supplying the power to the closet, any ideas yet?

and where the hell are you that they charge 100 disconnect and 100 reconnect?

mine was shut off here several months ago after i had signed up for automated payment and they forgot to process it.. the fee which they later waived was $22 for the reconnect, $0 for the disconnect.

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minusonebit

No there isn't.

http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp

There is such a law in the UK, however.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/w...st/5239962.stm

And this one illustrates the argument I'd use: Pennies are legal tender and they didn't tell me before I established service, then their refusal to accept pennies allows me to go to Court and seek to have the debt invalidated because legal tender was offered for payment and refused.

http://www1.wsvn.com/features/articl...oward/MI17058/

tenletters

sweet, I didn't think there were any posters here that were more white trash than me.

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woj

yea, no kidding...

but either way...


congrats to all the winners

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kane

Co-ops are insane. Where I moved to where I live now they have one and they didn't even give me the option of a credit check the just told me I had to pay $150 deposit and that if I wasn't late during the first year they would give me the money back. Two weeks later they literally are knocking on my door wanting money and telling me I'm late. I explain to them I just had the lights turned on two weeks ago when I moved in and hadn't even gotten the first bill. It turns out I signed up the day before the billing cycle ended so they thought I owed them $2.49 from last month. Yes, they sent someone to my house to collect $2.49 and they wanted a $25 fee for this. In the end it seems since I was a new customer there was a delay in my first bill because it would also include my deposit. I didn't pay the guy at my door and a few days later when they bill came I took it down to the office and paid it. I had to argue with them for 5 minutes to make them understand their error before the removed the $25 "door" fee.

Of course a year later they tried to tell me I was late paying and I wouldn't get my deposit back. After showing them receipts for the year and explaining what happened at the start they gave me my deposit. But they didn't give me cash like they said they would, they just credited my bill.

They are a real pain in the ass if you need to do anything and they treat everyone like we she bow to them and consider how lucky we are to have them around. If I ever get diagnosed with a fatal disease I'm strapping explosives to my chest and pulling a jihad on their asses.

stickyfingerz

Just get a 1/2" piece of copper pipe and hammer down the ends flat. and bend it a bit so it will fit in the slots. Then simply plug it into where the meter was. Dont worry about getting shocked. The electric flow will only pass "through" the pipe and not into your hands. Just grasp it firmly and push it in. There you go full power for free.

tenletters

"Originally Posted by baddog
Reminds me of a story (better than his).

I was divorcing my first wife, and while most things in the settlement I did not have a problem with, the Court ordering me to pay $250 to her attorney kind of pissed me off, so I decided I would pay him in pennies.

I had to order $250 in pennies from my bank, which they provided. I then went home and broke open the rolls, emptying the rolls into a pillow case. I then proceeded to her lawyer's office.

I was pretty dismayed when I pulled up in front and saw it was an older, three story building, meaning there was no elevator. Damn. Also, no parking in front of the building.

You really don't realize how heavy $250 is until you have to carry them in a pillow case, a city block, and up two flights of stairs.

To say the attorney was not amused would be an understatement. He reminded me that the judge probably had less of a sense of humor than he, and would probably find me in contempt if he found out about my "prank."

I then carried the bag down two flights of stairs, and a city block, back to my truck. "\

hahaha god damn you that was good.

my penny story is lame... went to pay my cable bill at the bank (they accepted pymts there) and the two pennies that I was attempting to pay bill with had something sticky on them and the bitch teller refused to accept them. I raised hell, she raised hell, her boss raised hell, and I left with two sticky pennies and an unpaid cable bill.

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minusonebit

Nice try, though there is a way to do this without dying and I might just try it if I can get a hold of the fuse links. I have more connections than AT&T, a buddy of mine is sure he has some that will work.

stickyfingerz

Hmm careful you might get "the man" after you then... You can use tinfoil instead of cooper, we're all sure you have plenty of that laying around...

aico

I think I made $17 in the time it took to read that.

Young

I stopped caring halfway into the second paragraph. You tell stories like my girlfriend does.

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studiocritic

I call BS.

The breaker is probably no more than 15-25 amp.

No fucking way is it running space heaters, a refrigerator, blah blah, etc.

Not only are you a complete conspiracy-loving nutjob; you're a liar.

Thanks for playing!

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thagreek

Thats what I was thinking.

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baddog

You know, you really should read the links you provide. An example would be when you suggested that seatbelts were medical devices. Herein lies another.

From your reliance:

Title 31 (Money and Finance), Subtitle IV (Money), Chapter 51 (Coins and Currency), Subchapter I (Monetary System), Section 5103 (Legal Tender) of the United States Code states:

United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.

What this statute means, in the words of the United States Treasury, is that "[A]ll United States money . . . is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal law mandating that a person or organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services."

That's it. All this means is that the Federal Reserve System must honor U.S. currency and coins, not necessarily anyone else. U.S. currency and coins can be used for making payments, but a debtor does not have to pay in legal tender, nor does a creditor have to accept legal tender.

However, even in cases where legal tender has been agreed to as a form of payment, private businesses are still free to specify which forms of legal tender they will accept. If a restaurant doesn't want to take any currency larger than $20 bills, or they don't want to take pennies at all, or they want to be paid in nothing but dimes, they're entitled to do so (but, as mentioned earlier, they should specify their payment policies before entering into transactions with buyers). Businesses are free to accept or reject pennies as they see fit; no law specifies that pennies cease to be considered legal tender when proffered in quantities over a particular amount.

baddog

baddog

For some reason, I doubt he was referring to the light in the closet.

You do realize a word can be an adjective and a noun and mean something completely different, right?

anais

what a crock of shit. pay your bill.

emthree

I was waiting for the part where you benifit...

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edgeprod

.. what .. the .. FUCK .. is wrong with you?

minusonebit

Thats the author's legal opinion of the law. Its not fact and IMHO its wrong. I specifically said which piece I was relying on for my arguments, I linked to this one to illustrate the fact that there is no 100p must be accepted law. You are funny when you try to act smart, you know that?

No one said I would force them to accept it. But I bet I can get their claim of a debt invalidated if they don't. If they want to be paid, they'll accept it.

How many amps do you think it takes to run two space heaters, a fridge and some computer shit. And I didn't say they were all running at once, did I?

edgeprod

Clearly, you're the authority. When they see the facts behind Saddam's "fake" hanging, the world will accept your interpretations of the law as fact as well.

It will be a minusonebit universe.

Holy hell, why does OC-3 allow you to keep that sig while spewing such crazy nonsense?

baddog

Agree on all points.

madawgz

sorry i cant read that much on a friday night, but it sounds like it sucks

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BIGTYMER

hahah! great thread! reminds me of when i was younger.

pocketkangaroo

There is absolutely no way you are powering all that from that socket. Do you have any idea how much electricity that would have to pull to power a fridge, 2 space heaters, 4 APCs and whatever varios other lights and radios you have running?

studiocritic

50-100? More?

Depends on the rating of the heaters.

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baddog

Not to mention that extension cord would be melted by now.

JD

lmao n1 man. down with the power company assholes!

Red Ezra

they will just burn you out with a fire or something - dont start a war - be smart

borked

Dude - be careful about continuously drawing electricity from that light socket...

Lighting cable is a smaller diameter (1.5mm2) than power socket cable (2.5mm2) because it isn't used to draw a tonne of current. If you start pluggin in your fridge, puters, cooker etc etc, then the wires is gonna get awful hot, melt the insulating sheath around it and start an electrical fire somewhere in your building.

Then you'll have one big fuck off bill to pay.

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aico

You lied a lot when you were young?

baddog

Bump so people know what an idiot minusonebit is

Klen

You pay for electricity?hahahaha

Pleasurepays

i can't believe how dumb people are in this place.

not only do you do insanely stupid shit that you have no right to do.... but you go on public record, include elaborate explanations and photos.