BEWARE Automatic Payment Schemes to Utility and other Companies

Recently, while paying bills, (I don't do direct automatic payments - just the old fashioned get the bill and write the check way) I noticed that every utility, cable, phone, etc, had little notes in the envelope explaining that their costs had gone up so that they had to pass this along to the customer.

Some were only $5 or so. But the most outragious was National Grid Power company (formerly Enron) whose prices had doubled. This was in the news, stating that the customer was going to get some type of refund because of governmental review, which has not happened yet. Yet, now National Grid states that they had undercharged gas customers, so they are going to be increasing the next bill.

Those that have automatic billing won't be aware of these increases...and these companies will have gougeed them before they can protest. I now see why there has been such a campaign to get people to "go paperless"! Also, they now bill you for billing you...an extra charge for that as well!!