Archive of Documents
Allegations: Washington Gas Holdings ~ Fraud through mismanagement
Seniors – particularly Seniors on Washington Gas Holding's (WGL) fixed payment plan -- are advised to immediately audit their gas bills. Thousands of dollars of overpayments by Seniors to WGL have already been verified. More work is needed to determine whether overpayments are isolated errors or are part of a wider scheme to defraud Seniors. You can help.
The most egregious example to date is the case of a 67 year old Senior living in Prince Georges County, Maryland. Despite overpaying on WGL’s fixed payment, budget plan by more than $2,000, this Senior has been the target of an intense campaign of intimidation by WGL to wrongfully collect additional overpayments. WGL turned off his hot water for more than a year. He also lived in fear of eviction because of WGL’s threatening phone calls to his landlord.
Despite this Senior’s best efforts to resolve the issue, WGL stepped-up efforts to collect additional monies and refused to return or discuss past overpayments. Only when WGL executives discovered the company is being featured in an magazine expose', did WGL personnel agree to discuss past overpayments – and then made false claims that WGL had returned certain funds to him.
If you are a Senior on WGL's fixed payment plan, please verify your last 10 years of payments to WGL and request copies of your monthly statements from WGL showing usage and taxes against your paid-in amounts. You may request the information by contacting Washington Gas Billing Department at (703) 750-1000. Make the request in writing:
Office of the Chairman
Washington Gas Holdings
101Constitution Ave
Washington DC 20080
You are entitled to the information.
You may find that , like the Senior in the example below, you are due substantial repayment. If so, please contact us at Judge@noticeoffindings.info. Why? Because, you may also qualify for a much larger payment from a potential class action lawsuit on behalf of Maryland Seniors. Do not delay. Certain legal time limits may reduce the amount you could potentially receive.
Executive Summary: As a regulated provider under sole source legislation in Maryland, Washington Gas Holdings seems to believe it is immune to best practices in monopoly management.
Consumers, especially seniors, are only a target for inflated profits as regulatory agencies take 2.5 times billings in tax revenues to support government greed.
It appears budgets can only create surpluses by increasing private sector costs instead of reducing government expenses and management costs of monopolies.
It matters not that you pay your bills, regulators stay away from any form of regulation imposing upon pocketing money from an advocate (lobbyist).
Initially, landlord confronted renter over not paying applicable Washington Gas bill View Online account . They accused bilking them until renter demanded proof of why they would make such accusations.
A bill presented with a fraudulent account number. It was verified by a Washington Gas customer service representive to be a woman, Amy Elizabeth, using subject address with another account number to terminate service.
Absolutely, no alert was issued to resident at that apartment. For more than 11 months, gas was unknowingly turned off to a low maintenance feed unable to heat water in a gas water heater. From 09/30/08 to 08/28/09 renter was denied gas for showers, and cooking.
WGL has again turned off the gas September 1, 2009 after receiving payment in an attempt to extort more money instead of settling their over-collections. They claim their records don't go back far enough to overcome their fraud.
This is cause to consider bundling utilities offering a choice of rebillers to consumers. Currently, state provider monopolies are given "Blankies" through legislated rates exceeding market economy thrift plus excessive tax rates above actual usage billing.
In this case, records show that payments were automatically paid in excess of monthly assessments by nearly double beginning 08/01/02 and fixed at $35 per month until 02/01/08 when increased to $45, then to $60; on 5/30/08; corrected to $54 from 7/1/08 to present. Each month, in 2008, customer received a billing statement with "$0" due.
For more than a year, payments were sent covering more than metterd usage as illustrated in a most recent bill. all though instructed by Maryland Rgulators not to pay any disputed amounts, I don't believe they were instructing WGL not to return over-payments amounting for the period 08/02 to 10/09. Instead they over billed to cover their inability to service their accounts. Gas was on restricted flow until just last week 09/26/09.
It has been determined that not only a health hazard doing business with Washington Gas they need more than ten appendages to calculate correct amount at cost per therm used that are less than 50% of county taxes.
Monthly average use was between $3 and $5 plus $23 in Maryland and Prince George's County taxes or a more than gas used as billed with $27 over-pay to prevent late fees. Over 7 years, that amounts to approximately $2,500 pocketed by Washington Gas Holdings without best practices regarding budget billing.
Regulators, as you read through that link, turned away from addressing this issue. So much for honor in government. However, they did follow up with an investigation.
There aught to be law requiring best interests and best practices instead of monopolizing public utilities for best handouts [bribes]. Bond ratings may fail as investors sell out risk.
Working on it - media push. Not as high a priority as class action that could amount to billion$