In a remarkable display of either incompetence or arrogance or both, CMP announced a new initiative called “Power On.” Wasn’t that their principle task right along?
CMP doesn’t need a new initiative or a high paid consultant to change its behavior towards customers. As always, CMP tries to solve problems with expensive propaganda campaigns meant to change public perspective without addressing the issues that concern Maine customers! Any 4th grader can tell CMP what must happen! Just do your job! While lineman get the job done, CMP management just doesn’t get it.
Tell me who is twisting CMP’s arm to continue sending out incorrect bills? They are not compelled to. Why are these incorrect bills always in CMP’s favor and never undercharges to the customer? CMP needs to do trauma care and wrap a tourniquet around billing. After two years there is absolutely no excuse for bills to reach customers with incorrect information. Any smart businessman would have given a directive a long time ago that no bill leaves this off unless it’s 100 percent correct. CMP misdirects by calling them “glitches” “presentation errors” “fast clocking meters” etc. Let’s face the facts CMP, they are incorrect and it’s your fault!
That’s just one issue that can be solved tomorrow internally and instantly! CMP could do quality control on every bill and not release it to the customer until it is correct. CMP is unfit to send out a bill, unfit to register a payment correctly, unfit to deliver reliable power, unfit in safety, unfit in providing fair and reasonable rates, unfit in courtesy during customer care, unfit to provide actual outage information and restore times. The only thing that works at CMP is the lineman! It is time for the Maine Public Utilities Commission to revoke their license and put it out to bid! Mainers expect reliable power at a fair price and a correct bill!
Currently there are four, 10-person complaints in the hands of MPUC asking for CMP to have their authority revoked. This would give the MPUC flexibility to bid out our service to another private company or a Consumer Owned Utility or a combination of both. It is time for 21st century power that puts the customer first.
Note; anyone wishing to comment on one of the existing complaints can do so on MPUC site. The four case #s are 2019-00282, 2019-00299, 2019-00324 and 2019-00335
Deke Sawyer
Jackman
Don’t automatically attribute to malice what could otherwise be explained by stupidity. I have been a CMP customer for almost 3 years, and they’ve both over and under billed me numerous times during that period. I was able to resolve the issues each time, but yes, it was inconvenient. I don’t think the people at CMP are up to some nefarious plot to bilk their customers. I think they’re just doing the best they can with a system that was poorly implemented.
Most people forget only a few short years ago hundreds of meter readers were deployed to collect bi-monthly readings and record them for accurate billing. The so-called “smart” meters have removed this crucial human element from the billing cycle, relinquishing control to an outsourced computer system maintained by only a fraction of the previous fleet of employees. It’s no wonder they don’t have their stuff together, they’ve shoehorned a highly technical metering system and duct-taped it to a hundred year old power system.
You have two choices, cut CMP a break and relax OR opt-out, pay for a standard electro-mechanical meter, and CMP will send you some buisness cards then you can report your own usage.
Daniel being q customer for three years you have seen all the issues with CMP. With that said had you been a customer ten to fifteen years ago you wouldn’t have had any of these issues. The new “smart meter” is the biggest culprit to these billing issues not the old lines beside the road.
I opted out of the “smart meter” because I didn’t want to see all the meter readers get laid off so CMP could save money. They still have to read the smart meters by the way. I have the cards but only use them every other month because they actually send someone out. Guess what I found out my light bill fluctuates opposite of what I was billed last year before I started doing CMP’s job on the off months.
Bottom line is Deke Sawyer is absolutely correct. CMP needs to actually fix this mess the customer shouldn’t have to pick up the slack. Maybe you’re too young too know the old saying of the customer is always right. Seems a lot of businesses have forgotten this.
What I don’t understand is that CMP being a monopoly why are they spending our money to run propaganda ads on tv. They have no competition so why the ads. I’m not talking NECEC ads either.
Deke Sawyer, I couldn’t agree with you more. CMP is unfit to to “Power On” on every one of those levels. Power on initiative is just another slap in the face by CMP to their ratepayers. Apparently, we were never number one from the beginning. As they stated the “The Public sector isn’t ready to deal with” . CMP keeps managing to do more damage than good. They talk out both sides of their face. They would rather lie to the MPUC than be honest and say they have issues from a poor implementation. They would rather call their ratepayers liars, then face any ramifications from these so called “presentment issues”. CMP just doesn’t know how to be truthful in any way. They just don’t get it.
You know what the public sector can’t deal with? Having erroneous bills on made up numbers, have poor quality service, have terrible customer service, having ww2 error poles, poor infrastructure, calling ratepayers liars, lying to the MPUC. I can sit here and type all day but the bottom line is CMP initiative Power on needs to be powered off by the ratepayers and the MPUC. It is to late for CMP, once you call your ratepayers liars, you have lost that trust. No need to bring in damage control when the damage is to far gone. Power off CMP.
4 10 person complaints, 40 people out of more than half a million customers, the term “You can’t please everybody” comes to mind. 40 people is not even 1% of 1% of 1%. Now if you had 300,000 complaints, then I’d say CMP has some kinks to work out, but 40 people, that’s not even worth getting out of bed for, much less going to sway the MPUC into destroying CMP.
Lol, if I dedicated the time I could assure you I could get 300k plus worth of signatures. I guess it is equivalent to say that CMP has 1.6 stars, only 25,280 likes with 600,000 captive customers, and made dead last on JD powers because they are liked so much. So, to say 4/ 10 person complaints are nothing plus 3k more on a petition that is not advertised is a big deal. Pack your office up because CMP is having the power turned off.
Awww,
With all due respect, it’s not CMP forcing so-called “smart” meters on customers. Those orders came from the top, they are incentivized by the federal government to implement these systems due to legislation passed in smoke-filled rooms.
Not only are their meters innaccurate, but they are a privacy and national-security nightmare. It’s only a matter of time before we see cyber attacks on the so-called “smart” grid. These new meters can be powered off REMOTELY (ie, you don’t pay your bill, whatever). What is to stop a determined hacker or disgruntled empty from turning off all of them at once? Nobody even bats an eye at the fact that their hour-by-hour consumption statistics are being sold to the highest bidder. Creepy, disfunctional, and risky. But CMP shouldn’t shoulder all the blame, their old system worked fine; their hands were tied and they were more or less coerced into a hasty new metering system.
I too opted out and installed a regular electro-mechanical meter after a $900 overage in January of 2018 only to be underbilled for five months to the tune of $1300 dollars. I’ve lived in three other states where I paid utilities and Maine is by far the most expensive. I’ve never had issues with billing in the past with any other provider, ever. That being said, I still don’t believe it’s malice. Every time I’ve called CMP they’ve rectified the issue and were nice about it. Their employees are good people and it seems like they’re trying their best. At the top however, they are owned by a foreign energy conglomerate who answers to its shareholders. The ruthless calculus they employ at those levels is so far removed from the customer, your complaints barely register at all.
CMP should be purchased by the customers, owned and operated by the people of Maine and then we would have no one but ourselves to blame.
No due respect needed. I’m not disagreeing with you. I understand why you didn’t swap over for security reasons. I too like knowing my power has to be terminated at my location not at someone else’s. The mapping of our homes started with these and have moved into every aspect of new technology. Everything from the meter to the coffee pot is smart now. Have you seen the plug in that turns your electric lines in your walls into an antenna for your t.v. ?
Tasha, Duke Energy in NC, one of the largest electricity companies in the US, 7.4 million customers, 6 states, 2 stars and 245,000 likes, Facebook, Yelp or whoever, web ratings mean nothing, the biggest complaints about Duke Energy, overages and high bills and lousy customer service, CMP is not unique and as long as people have to pay for something, people will complain about having to pay it, no matter what it is they are paying for, car payments, insurance, groceries, gas/fuel, utilities, health care, etc. etc. people will complain. And the JD Power rating was for community involvement, it didn’t rate customer service, company operations, company reliability, but which companies funded scholarships or sports teams or other community programs, kind of pathetic really.
Daniel, CMP would go for about $60 odd billion or more($41 billion in debt) which means, each customer would have to put up $100,000 in order to have an equal stake in the company, people think, a few hundred on the light bill too much as it it is. So let’s run with this for a moment, everybody comes up with the money, and Avangrid and Ibidrola agree to sell. CMP just delivers the power they don’t make it. It comes from many suppliers, those suppliers are going to want to be paid for their electricity, and 600,000 people just bought a company that is right full of problems, their bills are going to go up rather than down, unless the people put forth stock and provided people will buy stock in a company that according to presumptions is going to go through some HUGE changes, but you can’t issue so much stock that the “owners” don’t retain their controlling shares, nobody is going to nickel and dime the shares, If there are 100,000 shares issued, 100,000 people are not going to just 1 share, current price of CMP stock is $5 per share, so if I come in and buy all 100,000 shares for half a million dollars, I just became the stake holder with a controlling majority, as no other stake holder can match or beat my 100,000 shares. So 600,000 people hold stock in a company that I now control. 600,000 people paid $60 billion for a company that I just got control of for half a million, think of the hero you’d be, convincing all those people to buy a company they can’t decide the fate off. I could push for a hostile take over and offer to buy everybody else out for pennies on the dollar, once the shares are mine, I offer to sell ALL my shares to CMP for $20 billion, Ibedrola jumps on it because they get their company back for $20 billion, I pocket the $20 billion, and Ibedrola gets their company back minus the $40 billion in debt and 600,000 people are left holding the bag for a $60 billion dollar debt and they still have to pay CMP for electricity, and are worse off than they were.
Hrtless, not sure where you got your numbers from but happy to look them over if you provide sources. The idea of Mainers buying CMP isn’t new, https://bangordailynews.com/2019/01/28/business/some-mainers-want-to-buy-cmp-and-emera-to-let-the-public-own-the-states-power-system/
If CMP is as indebted as you claim and as dysfunctional as everyone seems to believe, it should command a nice discount.
Great points. But why free ourselves of the shackles of CMP only to put ourselves up for bid to another shark tank. Consumer Owned Utility is the only way fix this.
There is nothing wrong with a private company that is customer focused. Part of the problem with CMP is the guaranteed 12-15% returns the state has granted them. Where can you go other than a monopoly and get guaranteed returns like this? I want in. It doesn’t matter how good or bad they perform they get a guaranteed return. The more they spend the more money they make. That is why huge distance between power source and customer is their friend. The whole system is upside down.Why get rid of CMP? Because every area of the company is unfit! Find one or more companies that will provide the best answer for their customers and if they are private allow a return that is in relationship to performance and service. By the way although CMP technically owns their infrastructure more than half was paid for by taxpayers and customers with no share in the equity. That is unjust and unfair.