Unfair smud bill

[vanessavanessa]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CALIFORNIA
North Highlands, California. I just moved from San Francisco, CA to North Highlands, CA. I just moved into a 2bd duplex. I called Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) for service. My landlord talked to SMUD and told them that I moved in along with my mother. My mother stayed with me for all of two weeks and then took off with her boyfriend to Nevada somewhere. All of a sudden I receive a bill from SMUD for over $1,500.00. Apparently, when my mother lived in Sacramento she owed them the above amount. Now they said I owe them the $1,500.00. I never lived with my mother in Sacramento. I have disputed this and furnished them proof that I lived in San Francisco during the time my mother lived in Sacramento. They still are sticking me with the bill. It's not fair. Can they do this legally?

 

[CdwJava]

How can they possibly claim YOU are responsible for your mother's bill? Was YOUR name on the account? Could mom have gotten the account in your name?

The bottom line is that unless you opened the account or were somehow legally responsible for your mom's debts, they have no leg to stand on.

I suspect something is amiss here.

 

[vanessavanessa]

I talked to them and no, it was not in my name. It was in my mothers name only. They seen her name on the lease and said I need to get her to pay the bill. Instead of sending her a bill separately they decided to tac it on mine. Need to talk to a lawyer. Do you know what category of law this would fall under?

 

[CdwJava]

I talked to them and no, it was not in my name. It was in my mothers name only. They seen her name on the lease and said I need to get her to pay the bill. Instead of sending her a bill separately they decided to tac it on mine. Need to talk to a lawyer. Do you know what category of law this would fall under?

It will probably cost you more for an attorney than the amount of the bill, but I am sure that most any attorney can handle it or redirect you. Maybe contract law.

I don't see how they remotely consider you liable on her bill unless you somehow agreed to merge her old account with yours or some such thing.

I would ask them for the document with your signature that indicated you were responsible for her bill. If they could produce no such document, I would refuse to pay it. But that's me.

 

[vanessavanessa]

Thank you for your response. I was thinking of just getting a free consultation with a lawyer. Maybe even looking into pro bono. I have no intentions of paying that bill. The thing is they said if I don't pay it by the 9th of next month, they will shut everything off. That means no way to cook, no hot water, no TV and no Internet. On top of all that, I'm saving to buy a house one day. This will go on my credit report. I have always paid my bills on time and sometimes early. Now this happens. I'm so stressed out and hurt that this kind of thing can happen to me or somebody else down the line. And people like me that really can't afford to get an lawyer are wrongly marked and stuck.

 

[rachaelegy]

Same thing happened to me...

Right after my husband passed away, SMUD decided that they weren't going to let a little thing like death keep him from paying his bill.
During a few months that my husband and I were separated, he had his own place and ran up a $600 bill with them. The bill was in his name, no one else's!
His mother had an account at another address during that same time frame.
Two separate accounts, two separate addresses!!
Well after he moved out of that place, we got back together and stayed at his mother's place for a couple of months. Then we all moved out of that home. His mother moved into a house with her friend, and we got our own apartment, but because of his bill with SMUD, his mother opened the account in her name instead. We lived at that apartment for 2 & 1/2 years, and always paid the bill. It wasn't until right after he died that SMUD decided to shut us off.
I called them up asking what was the problem, they told me that even though my bill wasn't due till the end of the month, they had just discovered the past bill of $600 and I had to pay it off before they would reconnect me.
I said how can this be? They weren't even living together when he ran up that bill, and this bill isn't in his name, plus he's dead! I said you can even look up in your records that they weren't living together. I asked to speak to the supervisor, and I begged and pleaded with him for at least an hour. I told him that I am recently widowed with 2 children... he didn't care. I never seen someone act more cold hearted then that man before in my life.
I really do believe that it was BECAUSE HE DIED that SMUD decided to pursue this debt. My mother In-law eventually decided that she couldn't bear to see her son's babies be without any electricity and paid the bill off for me.
You see this is exactly how they keep getting away with this, they know that they have the market cornered, you can't get your power from anyone else, so they don't have to worry about customer service. And they know we can't live with out it. And so we'll eventually give in, and pay the bill. By that time, we have no kind of money to take any legal action against them, and anyone who does have that kind of money, doesn't find themselves in a position like that in the first place.
SMUD is an EVIL company!! I think people like us need to band together and stand up to them, to show them that they can't keep getting away with stuff like that!!

 

[Hot Topic]

I think that you needed to start your own thread and not attach your complaint to another's in a heavy handed attempt to redirect attention from that poster's thread to yours.

And you need to learn the difference between "unfair" and "illegal."

 

[gnrrocks]

question?

I had something similar happen to me, SMUD and PG&E tacked on my mothers husbands bill to my own, i ended up paying over 2,500 dollars for bills that were not my own after he passed away. I was actually curious if anyone actually got legal advice, and i wonder if theres enough people for a class action lawsuit because im sure this happens to people all the time, and it hardly seems far for them to tack someone elses bill to yours regardless if you lived there or not because you yourself never signed a binding contract with the company, at least i never did. I was just turned 18 and had a baby boy and moved out on my own putting pge and smud in my name for first time to open my first bill to see over 2500 dollars between the 2 and i eventually had to pay for it because i had a baby and could go with out it, and part of the pge ended up on my credit report because i got behind on the payments. Does anyone else think this is unfair?

 

[racer72]

It is rude to hijack another thread, start your own.

 

[swalsh411]

Two hijacks in one thread!

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

The answer to all of them is that the state utility dept regs usually allow utilities to tack on a bill owed by one person, onto another persons bill, if the utility has reason to believe the person who owed the first bill is benefitting from the utilities at the other place.
This came about from everyone running bills up, them switching account names, to someone else in the household they were living in. It can be challenged, however usually, it is cheaper to pay the bill.