Taking the boiled bunny-stance of jilted lovers, Oklahoma Natural Gas—ONG, if you will—wants to inflict financial harm on you and your loved ones to the tune of an oddly specific $687.50 if you decide to break up with them.
According to a recent article in The Oklahoman, people who decide to switch from natural gas to, say, modern and efficient electric heating, will be billed with final retribution and extreme prejudice by ONG and, more than likely, receive numerous threatening phone calls when it can’t be paid on time. Yikes!
From the Oklahoman:
According to the plan, ONG would pay its immediate debt by issuing bonds to investors. Customers would be on the hook to gradually repay those bonds over the next 25 years. To make the investment more attractive, the plan's designers created an "exit fee" to ensure the entire amount due would be paid, even if a customer switches their home's fuel source.
Well, I guess that I’m glad I currently rent an “all bills paid” place...for now!
What really gets me about this though is the fact that, year after year, utility companies post more shareholder profits, something that everyday customers like you will not only never see, but instead have to deal with things like price hikes in the upcoming months.
It’s like a power scam from a dystopian movie, only this time we have no mystical child to guide us to post-apocalyptic freedom; we’ll be lucky if the ONG magnates bless us with a few whiffs of natural gas from their ample asses once a month as punishment for our sheer impudence.
The exit fee charges customers up to $687.50 if they choose to switch to another fuel source. After about 13 years of the 25-year securitization plan, the fuel-switching fee will begin to shrink as customers continue to pay the monthly securitization charge.
Where else would we go but to another fuel source?
If ONG actually manages to get away with this, pulling a possible scam on their soon-to-be former customers, what’s keeping other utility companies from getting in on the same racket? Can we expect the water company to supply us with untreated sludge? The electric company shutting off power sometime around five in the evening? Gas companies making average citizens pay back $687.50 …. oh, wait…
As the whole thing is currently in the process of being judged by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, a few helpful ideas to hkeep you and your family warm this season as you save up those nickels and dimes include wood fireplaces, large metal trashcans, and condomless intercourse, but that’s only around thirty seconds of warmth, so, really, what’s that point?
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