TORONTO HYDRO

June 16th, 2012

Dear Toronto Hydro,

I am absolutely, frustratingly enraged. Not only is your crappy website crappy, as if it was made in the early 2000s and hasn’t been updated since, your bureaucratic processes are slow, expensive, monotonous and inaccurate.

Here is my experience with Toronto Hydro so far:

I receive my first bill in the mail. 3 pieces of paper, a brochure and duplicate copies of the same pamphlet plus the envelope. Charges include $160 deposit, $30 account set up, $32 in delivery  and only $11.00 for my actual hydro usage.

I set up my account online. This takes me at least 7 minutes to find the register link, since there is no “new to online billing?” standard link when you click the login button. I finally find the link, which is under For Home: Customer Care: eBill: your Bill Overview: eBills Sign Up. This is ridiculous, that is 5 menu options, it should be ON THE FRONT PAGE in a link titled, “click here to sign up for your eBill”. However, in order to sign up, I need to request an activation code, which will come by mail.

I call customer care about setting up prepayments, they indicate that I have to send a void cheque in to Toronto Hydro.

I void a cheque and mail it to Toronto Hydro. This is another piece of paper, an envelope, and the price of a stamp.

I have to wait a week for my activation code to come by mail. This is another piece of paper and an envelope.

I try activating my online account, but I accidentally try logging in through the wrong link. When I find the right one, my activation code does not work.

I call customer care. Turns out clicking the wrong link prompts a new activation code to be sent by mail. Customer care gives me the activation code so I can activate it right then without waiting for the mail. Customer care also advises me to go to /tou so I can view my energy usage online (which is a great idea).

I activate my account, everything goes fine this time. I go to /tou and oh look, right on the front page, “click here to register.” Whaddya know, somehow you’ve made it easy on this site. I go to register with my activation code and it doesn’t work, locking me out from using my account number. Odd I think, why on earth would my eBill and energy usage be on TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SITES?! What GENIUS thought it would be a great idea to separate these two things, when they are for the same account?!  This is unnecessary BS.

I call customer care about my being locked out. They indicate that yes, I need a separate activation code to login to this site, I will also have to create a separate user name and password for this site. But customer care gives me a tip – make my user name and password the same as my other account so I don’t have to memorize account info for two different sites. Customer care is sooooo (sarcastically) smart.

I get a letter from Toronto Hydro again today, it’s an activation code. I try entering the activation code on the /tou website and of course it doesn’t work, it’s the second activation code from my eBill login. This is another piece of paper and envelope.

So, I am still waiting on my third activation code to access my online usage on your terribly terrible websites.

Seriously Toronto Hydro, so far you’ve wasted 14 pieces of paper and I still haven’t been able to fully access all my online information and it’s been 25 days. This is completely contemptible. For a company trying to promote energy conservation from its consumers, it disgusts me how much time, paper, and money you’ve spent so far on an extremely dissipative process.

On top of all this, you charged me $30 in activation fees. WELL NO WONDER! It’s because you need all that money to be completely wasteful in setting up my account. I should expect to receive this money back in full in retribution for you being so terrible to me. It shouldn’t take 25 days to set up my account when it could be done all in one online process in 5 minutes.  That’s an increase of 1,439% in the amount of time it should take.  Comparatively if it costs $30 and 25+ days to set up an account, then it should cost only $0.02 to set up an account in 5 minutes. What is wrong with you people? We live in a cyber society and yet you’re using snail mail to get all your things done.

Here are my recommendations to make your terrible ways less waysteful (pun intended).

DELETE YOUR ENTIRE WEBSITE. Yes, that’s right. Gather all documents and stuffs and throw it all in the trash. It is useless. There is too much cluttered information and no fast way of getting to things. Recreate it to be useful. I suggest hiring 5 year-olds to do this. If they can make it work for them, it can work for anybody. I suspect that instead you hired programmers; bad call Toronto Hydro, bad call.

STOP SENDING ACTIVATION CODES. These are completely unnecessary, you may think you’re being secure, but you aren’t. Banks don’t even require activation codes and they handle the money that I use to pay my energy bills.

STOP SEPERATING ONLINE SERVICES. Accounts should have links to all online services, there is absolutely no reason why one person should have two separate account logins for different services from the same company.

Seriously, I am really frustrated and if I could, I would discontinue using light bulbs and install lamps throughout my house just to avoid your online services. I fully expect you to cancel my activation fees in retrospect of you deliberately wasting so much of my time. If you do not do this, I will continue to request activation codes and then send them back in the mail filled with rocks and “return to sender” marked on them until I feel that you have paid 1,439% more in postage than the $30 activation fee you charged me when it should have taken me 5 minutes and not 25 days so far. This is approximately $44,000 worth of rocks that you will receive back at your offices. Also, if I do not receive a prompt response from you, I will call your customer care and follow up on this myself.

Sincerely,

Terry Ibele