Monopolistic authority

So, today marks my return to battle with the local gas and electric concern. For those of you not familiar with the story I will relate it here. About six months ago L and I moved out into a house about two blocks from my old place, leaving my brother and a new roommate in the classic 1808. Well, since the power was in my name, I had to call and cancel their service and setup new service for our new place. The local power company got it about half right, they set me up new service, but left the old service in my name. This wasn't a problem until recently when the tenants of the 1808, who no longer included my brother, decided that the bill wasn't for them. This marked $100 of expenses for power I didn't consume, but the power company assures me that I did.

Well, they've been absolutely terrible about this situation, and really, I think this qualifies as a SNAFU for them. While they haven't called me a deadbeat in so many words (and mind you there was one late bill from an address I didn't even live at, in over four years of bills), they did allege my brother committed fraud and that I'm a liar. Well, suffice it to say that after hours of figuring out an alternative to the local power concern I'm probably just going to have to pay the bills for a location I didn't live at.

My real concern here is not the $120 total bills that I was liable for. Its that I was liable at all. If this were a credit card company, or a phone company, I'd leave their service today and switch. But its the electric company, and in California, regulation gives them a monopoly. They remain, however, a private company totally unaccountable to the consumer. I'm not sure why we allow private companies to have a legal monopoly. If we only want one choice, why aren't we running this thing as a government so that at least we could fire the head of the company when they screwed us? As it stands, when they screw us for an extra $100, they are twice rewarded. They make a profit on my $100 for power I didn't consume, and they keep me as a customer because my great state suggested that they can simply be the only going concern.

We'll see how my discussion with Ms. Hines goes today. - S