What's On Your Mind? Con Ed, ADT, Kohl's, TicketsNow.com

Mistakes happen but common sense ought to prevail. Celena, of Richmond Hill, N.Y., thinks common sense is in hiding in her standoff with her utility company, Con Edison.

“I called Con Ed to have the bill switched over to my name as of August 1,” Celena told ConsumerAffairs.com. “They accidently switched it as of January 29, 11 and have sent me a bill for $2,396.97. I called them and tried to resolve but they said that I told them 1/29/11. I told them that it is a mistake they won't honor and change the bill back to 8/1/11. They actually recommended that I go the previous tenant and get the money back and then pay them.”

We may not have all the facts here, but it sounds as though someone at Con Edison is attempting to stick Celena with an unpaid bill that stretches back to January. Assuming Celena has no responsibility for these previous charges, this should be a no-brainer. Celena needs to contact the New York Bureau for Consumer Protection or file a complaint with the New York Public Service Commission, which regulates Con Ed. 

It's fine, unless you move

If you are renting, or plan to move in the near future, you should take that into consideration if you sign a contract with ADT for a home security system. Melanie, of Denver, Colo., is moving from her rented home but just assumed she could take her ADT contract and equipment with her. It doesn't work that way.

“ADT explained that the three-year contract, of which I am into eight months, will have to be cancelled and that I will have to start another new three contract at the new address,” Melanie said. “The manager that I spoke with explained that the equipment stays with the address even, though I explained the system was wireless and I was willing to allow it to come with me.”

Melanie's complaint is that, while she is bound by a three-year contract, there is no contract if she moves within the time period. She must start a new agreement, with the clock set back to the beginning.

It's not that they're unhelpful

We get a lot of complaints that service just isn't what it used to be. Lorrinda, of Hampton, N.H., took her watch to Kohl's to replace the battery.

“I had to buy a watch to get a battery,” Lorrinda told ConsumerAffairs.com. “The jewery department wouldn't open my watch to find out battery size.”

In fairness to Kohl's their personnel probably aren't trained to deal with jewelry and, should an employee break a watch trying to open it, that's more trouble than a department store wants to deal with. Lorrinda probably would have had better luck if she had taken the watch to a jewelry store instead of Kohl's.

Take me out to the ball game

If you buy tickets to a sporting event from someone outside the stadium on the day of the game, you'll usually pay more than if you stood in line at the ticket gate. The same holds true if you buy your game tickets at reseller like TicketsNow.com.

“I ordered four tickets for my moms birthday to go to the Giants game in San Francisco,” Caroline, of Mill Valley, Calif., said. “It was a big occasion so we were looking for tickets around the 100-150 dollar sections. After looking at three different websites we decided that the best seats were available at Ticketnow, for 130 dollars apiece. We ordered four tickets plus tax and shipping fee for over 600 dollars, and we were surprised by the price, but hoped that the seats were really worth it. A few days later we received the tickets in the mail and our tickets had a face value of 42 dollars!”

The truly sad part of this story is that baseball games hardly ever sell out, so there is never a reason to pay more than the face value. In the future, Caroline can probably purchase her tickets from the team's website, and can check a diagram of the stadium to see where the seats are. Best of all, she'll pay face value for the tickets.