I used an access check drawn on my Capital One credit card to pay my power bill on April 5th 2012. The bill was due April 12th. On April 12th, I received two notices, both dated April 10, from Georgia Power. One related that the check had been returned unpaid and that my account was past due. Georgia Power was adding a $30 charge to the original amount of the bill. The second notice stated that "due to the repeated delinquencies", a $95 request for deposit was being added to my next bill.
I called Capital One to learn that they hadn't yet received a request for payment on the check and so could not have sent it back unpaid. Georgia Power customer service acknowledged receiving the check but said they "had an issue with the maker". For some reason Georgia Power appears to be rejecting the check and acting as if it has bounced. Further, it is odd that they take this behavior and then call the account "past due" on a date 2 days before the charges were due. I have had the account for a year and until this moment, there had never been a dispute. All payments, including this one, had been made on time and with sufficient funds.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
Had the exact same thing happen 3+ times to total over $500 and two service interruptions. Good luck, you won't get anywhere with them.
We are going thru same thing now. Account always has plenty of money (ten times the amount of the original bill) but they kept rejecting it. Said it was rejected for bad routing information but it was paid online by credit card.
So now I'm sitting here in the dark. And they won't accept anything but cash from now on.
Stupid company
I was notified by mail that my check had returned, I go to pay the bill and I receive another letter in my mail stating that I owe 145 because of "repeated delinquencies". Snail mail is the preferred method of communication on such serious matters. In an age of email and telephone, this is how they choose to communicate. Their software to handle routing numbers is horrid. I have never had this issue. Going through this, I did find out that they have a bill pay with a credit card, so I will pay the 3.60 to use this service to avoid their incompetent rigged system. You would think for a company that is subsidized by taxpayer money, makes a killing, and is a necessity, that they would be more "user friendly" and up to date. Nope, they are corporate thieves. Have fun power company, solar is on its way. I hope your profits drop you greedy mf's.
I had exactly the same thing happened on me. They charged me two service fee and two returned item fee accumulated up to 3 months 374$ while my actually consuming was 157$. I was trying to pay with debit card and check every month, they were all returned. It drove me crazy! Get penalty of something that I haven't done wrong! I don't know if it is the Georgia Power's strategy to suck extra money.