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Consumer alert! Check your emails from OGE, even if you usually ignore them. They have messed up their data base, and you are in immediate danger of having your auto-payments declined.
Detailed story of my day-long saga on the phone with them yesterday (6/18/25) 1. I got an email, stating that I owe 497.31. Yikes, did we leave the door open overnight or what? I wondered. 2. I went to my online OGE account. Ominous message there: "Payment Blocked: Online payment and Auto Pay are not currently available for any of your accounts due to two or more returned payments in the last 12 months. Please pay by cash at a kiosk or by sending a money order or cashier's check to OG&E, PO BOX 24990, Oklahoma City, OK 73124. Thank you." WTF? 3. I went online to my bank account. As usual, my OGE payments have been going out, right on time, correctly, including a payment on June 10, for about 155.00 btw, NOT 497.31 Uh oh. 4. I called OGE, and the recorded voice kept giving me trouble, when I entered the last 4 of my social#. It kept rejecting it for some reason, and repeating that I really really DID need to enter my social for verification. Uh oh. Foreshadowing detail: the hold message referred to a "transition" that OGE has just finished. REMEMBER THAT. 5. Worst part of this story: I disregarded the weird message about my social being wrong, and waited out a LONG hold, to talk to a human being. It did not go well. They basically REFUSED to discuss anything with me, because of the mismatch on my social security#. My drivers license did not match either. I explained to the clerk that I have been a customer since 2012, and yes, those have ALWAYS been my id facts, and nothing has changed on my end. I also asked the clerk if this could have something to do with their recent "transition" project? They dismissed that idea. Silly notion, right? 6. So, they vaguely told me to "go online and re-upload my social". What does that mean, I asked. You want me to upload my social security card? (btw, how many people just happen to have that handy?) Yes, that is what they meant. And they did not give any sort of secure email address or anything, just general advice to "go upload it", so they would talk to me. Otherwise, NO CONVERSATION AT ALL. 7. While online, I happened to look at my payment options. Weird. My normal checking account is still there, but it's blocked for auto-pay. Intermission: Guess what? We are far from done with this story. I am a pretty tech-savvy senior. Imagine all the folks who are not. This whole mess is gonna get somebody killed. Blood pressure is astronomical, by this point. Gotta keep working this, since it's my power, and the summer is getting hotter by the minute. 8. I noticed that my email included this message: " If you are not able to resolve an issue to your satisfaction, Oklahoma customers may contact the Oklahoma Corporation Commission Consumer Services Division at 405-521-2331 or toll free at 800-522-8154." Anybody want to guess what happened when I called them to complain? Right. "We don't handle that kind of thing". I will call them again later, after this whole mess gets fixed. 9. So I got desperate and found a way to get through to them as follows. I noticed a tab called "Your Documents", and under that was an option to "create a verification letter" (to state that I am indeed a paying customer). I tried it, and here's what happened: I got a pdf, stating that I do have electric service, at my home address. And at the very bottom, lower left-hand corner, was an address for a "Holly Hunter" in Durant, OK. WTF? 10. So, armed with this information, I called them back and finally got someone who actually listened to me, and gave me a specific email address ([email protected]) to upload my IDs, to get me re-activated (which has not happened yet, btw, I'm still waiting for that, next day). Conclusions: A. Their "transition" project has apparently conflated customers with the same first and last names (I feel so sorry for the "Bob Jones" and "Mary Smith's" of Oklahoma). B. As a result, they are sending "Durant Holly"s dun-letters to me (which means she won't even get a notice that she is behind on payments), and they refuse to even TALK to me yet, due to the social security and drivers license SNAFU. No doubt they are also refusing to talk to HER, since she apparently has MY ID data attached to her, right now. C. My auto-pay feature has been turned off (even though they MEANT to turn off "Holly Durant"s auto pay). So I would've missed my next payment, and heck, probably the next one too, since I don't usually check my emails. D. Moral of the story: GO CHECK YOUR OGE accounts, now. E. Second moral: somebody's gonna die, from this mess. Will keep you posted.
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Beware of drop ship scams! (Thanks to Jaime for this one)
I just got victimized by one. It wasn't for much, being only $15. But if I didn't catch on to it now, then that figure would likely grow. Plus, the scammers know my name, address and email now, so that's a little unsettling. In other words, now that they've successfully scammed me--even if just by a little bit--I worry that they might target me for more nonsense down the road. But I reported them, so… Okay, I'll lay this out so you can read what you are interested in, and skip the parts you're not. HOW TO GUARD AGAINST THE SCAM When shopping on non-Amazon sites like Wal-mart (you'll understand this if your read more), make sure that IF you're buying the item from a third-party seller, you check for the same product and price on Amazon. Doing that is arguably just a savvy shopper tactic, but you'll soon understand that you're also protecting yourself from the form of drop ship scam that I'm about to lay out. THE STORY / BACKGROUND I ordered several items from Wal-mart, including a motion-detecting, under sink LED light. I had actually searched all around (including Amazon), before I landed on the light I wanted, featured on the Wal-mart site. It was priced at $34.99; that seemed a bit pricey, but what the heck--it had the features I wanted, so I ordered it! I tracked the order carefully, and it showed to have been delivered one day at 12:51 p.m. But it wasn't there! I was home that day, and actually had other deliveries, so picked them up as they came in. Plus, I have a Ring doorbell; I checked the history and confirmed that IT WAS NOT DELIVERED. I started down the "problem with order" path on Wal-mart; they recommended waiting two biz days, so I did. Guess what? The item arrived 2 days later, BUT... It came from Amazon! And, it came as a "gift". I thought I was losing my mind! I KNEW I had ordered it from Wal-mart. How the heck did it show up from Amazon? I checked the Amazon site, and found that the exact same item I had bought through Wal-mart was cheaper: $19.99 instead of the $34.99 I had paid. I did the math, and, to wrap up… THE DROP SHIP SCAM The seller's biz model is this: Identify selected products on Amazon and calculate a price that is 75% higher than Amazon's. Then, advertise the item on Wal-mart for that higher price. Once someone falls for the trap and orders it (through Wal-mart), immediately order it from Amazon and have it drop shipped to the customer. The beauty of the scam is this: 1) The scammer pockets the difference in price ($15 in this case), 2) The buyer gets the product, and since it is a "gift", doesn't see the (lower) price that the scammer paid for it! 3) The scammer doesn't have to inventory any product, or mess with the shipping process; Amazon takes care of all of that stuff. Pretty clever, I must say! RESOLUTION I spoke with Wal-mart about this, and they confirmed that the seller was violating their policy. They offered me a $15 "promo code" on my next order. How about that?! The exact amount the scammer scammed me for! So in a nutshell, Wal-mart made me effectively whole--except for the time I spent investigating the mystery, and fighting through their automated system to finally get through to a live human being! (venting!)--by covering the difference between what I should have paid, and did. Wal-mart said that they'd investigate the scammer, and profusely thanked me for reporting it, saying my actions would save a lot of other people money and hassle. UPDATE I decided to call Amazon to let them know how they are being used to perpetuate scams. After I laid out the scam in detail, the Amazon agent asked me for the ("gift") order number. I had that info on hand, but before providing it, I asked her if the rogue seller violated their policy. Answer: NO. Based on that answer, I immediately realized that my alert call to Amazon was pointless, because… As far as Amazon is concerned, somebody bought me a gift and had it sent to me. How nice! All is good with Amazon! Intriguing! I decided to search afresh for the seller, "Alessia Cara", on Wal-mart's site. Wow! A famous Canadian singer! Isn't it nice to be purchasing products from such a person! Up until I did the quick seller search, I was thinking that the real person behind it was doing some kind of small time scam gig. But apparently, I was wrong; The seller / store features over 1000 products. It looks like Wal-mart was serious about taking action; if you go to the seller's page, none of the items are available now. You can see them, but they all show as unavailable. The store's name shows up as: xiangyangshidalihuamaoyiyouxiangongsi Interestingly, if you look up xiangyang shi, you'll find that he's a PhD cloud computing dude. Maybe he / they were using AI to boost their profits / volume? Maybe that's just another bit of fakery; in other words, the real Xiangyang Shi doesn't have anything to do with the operation. Last comment here: The seller shows ZERO reviews. Not sure if that got reset somehow, or what. Seems weird. Either way, I'm pondering placing a review of my own--in effect warning shoppers--which you can do anonymously, I just discovered. Maybe that's not necessary now... |
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