Southern California Edison electric company wants me to pay a $75 setup fee and $10 per month in order to NOT install new equipment. Can you imagine if the termite man was authorized to bill you to NOT come do exterminations? How about if the auto-mechanic bills me to NOT fix my car. This world is insane!
SoCal sent the above notice with the last bill saying one can be put on a Delay List (for free). This is nothing but bait-n-switch. I actually called the number and found out the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has eliminated the Delay List and created the only alternative program: their new “Opt Out” program.
In order to “Opt Out”, you have to pay a 1-time $75 setup fee to NOT setup the new meter, and then you have to pay $10/mo to have them “maintain and fix” the old meter. Well, now in some 3-4 DECADES of life, I have NEVER had to have an electric company come maintain or fix a meter.
What a bogus sham.
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Don’t be a ding dong. Let them install the free meter.
Hi Brian & CPear —
It is I who am the ding-dong — for not even bothering to explore the issue far enough to learn that one could opt-out of this Orwellian invasion of privacy. SoCal Edison didn’t mail me that info — although I’m sure I could have found out about ‘opt-out’ if I’d gone to their website when they hit me with this several months ago. Nice research, Brian, in spite of the fact that you got an equally Orwellian response to your inquiries. SoCal Edison now has profiles on all of us — when we go to bed, when we get up, when we leave for work, when we come home, whether we stay home on weekends or not — knowledge your state/federal government can lay their hands on in an instant — with or without a warrant — in our 4th-Amendment-free, post-9/11 socialist dictatorship. It is my understanding that the new meters have the hardware enabling selective de-energization of individual circuits in your home. This isn’t new — you could optionally sign up for this and get a break on your rates. SoCal wanted to incentivize your giving them this authority in your home so they could shut off select circuits during high-power-demand periods. It isn’t so optional any more! I predict the bait and switch game is just getting started: SoCal will get governmental authority to selectively shut off power WITHOUT your permission very soon. The first step, of course, is to get the hardware installed before the ignorant masses — with their filthy carbon footprints — act to stop them from taking over their private lives. And it doesn’t end there: the ability to hack your computer THROUGH ITS POWER CORD is just around the corner. Put that capability together with the new “Smart meter” . . . Edmund Burke had it right — “All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing . . .” Good job, Brian — and sorry for being one of the ‘do nothings’ on this. (If it makes you feel any better, I am stockpiling long-life incandescent light bulbs though . . . )
Nice comment NiCd.