I have steadily come to the conclusion that municipal incompetence is positively correlated with population size.

For those of you who do not live in Los Angeles, know that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is routinely ranked among the worst organizations in the United States. During the Enron scandal they just sort of accepted that Hoover Dam, which they used to own, somehow wasn't producing enough electricity to light Los Angeles that summer so they accepted rates 5x over prime and rolling brown-outs. Meanwhile up in Washington, Enron tried this with the Snohomish Public Utilities Division. SnoPUD said "get bent" and called their congresswoman, who proceeded to launch the investigation into Enron that led to their eventual destruction and incarceration.

Anyways. LADWP bought a new billing system from PriceWaterhouse Coopers in 2010. They rolled it out September 2013. Everything went worse than expected. This only matters to Your Narrator because we moved two doors down in September 2013. As a result, we had four power bills (they come every two months) that were pretty low. Not too surprising, really, as the climate around here is temperate enough that we have neither heat nor air conditioning (like, I know, right?). Not only that, but there are four lightbulbs in the entire house that aren't LED. It stood to reason that our power was 30% of what it was two doors down, where every light was a halogen (and there were dozens) and the fridge was so poorly installed that it burned out two coils in two years.

Things got exciting when LADWP sent a "too bad, so sad" "correction" for $1300 one fine day.

Facts LADWP has copped to, in writing:

1) No, my power usage shouldn't be substantially the same (as in, within 5% over a 2 month bill) with LEDs as with halogens

2) No, they didn't read my meter before I moved in

3) Yes, it's entirely possible that they're hitting me with a "correction" that accounts for underbilling against the previous tenant

4) Yes, they did charge $1300 worth of power at peak rates for one month because their new system isn't smart enough to recalculate any other way

5) Yes, that's probably illegal

6) Yes, I'm entitled to actually have LADWP come out and check this over with me (their nearest field office is, I shit you not, across the street). However, they instead gave my account back to accounting who actually increased the numbers. Yes, the fact that LADWP has quoted me three different sets of numbers is troubling.

7) No, I shouldn't pay that heinous $1300 overcharge (now $1325 overcharge) until this is all sorted out.

That's where we were from March 2014 up until two days ago, when they told me they were turning off my power in six days if I didn't cough up $900.

Here's where things get mind-blowing: It took half an hour on hold to get to someone (actually, that's not mind-blowing - that's LADWP). Then it took talking to him for half an hour before he said "there's nothing we can do but put you on a payment plan." Then it took talking to his supervisor for half an hour before she said "there's nothing we can do but put you on a payment plan" (while also helpfully telling me that some appliances such as refrigerators use a lot of power). Then it took another half an hour to get a supervisor to explain

"Yeah, we haven't sorted this stuff out yet but our policy has changed and now we're turning off people's power because we've been incapable of straightening out our fuckups in twelve months and we're tired of waiting."

So I'm on a payment plan to give LADWP an extra $50 a month that they extorted out of me illegally because they're too incompetent to read meters.

NONE OF THIS SHIT ever happened outside of LA.

On the plus side, there are two class-action lawsuits against LADWP right now for this very issue, alleging that the LADWP has no fucking clue what they're doing and gouging customers because they're completely strapped for cash. On the double-plus side, LADWP is suing PWC alleging that the LADWP has no fucking clue what they're doing and is completely strapped for cash because it's someone else's fault. So discovery is gonna be pretty awesome. And hey. There's an apartment building in the valley that got hit for 900 gallons of water use per day per tenant. Their average use, over the previous ten years, was 70 gallons a day.

The best part about this is after two hours on the phone I then had to spend an hour and a half on the phone AGAIN discovering that because my union is run by jackasses, every time I make an emergency room visit UCLA medical center is allowed to send me two identical bills and I'm required to pay them both.

So yesterday was double-plus productive, lemme tell ya.