Smart Meter is Finally Installed - Something's Fishy!

As promised by Alicia at ComEd, the field tech actually showed up - on time, on Tuesday 23 March.  He was actually a bit early and, when I explained that I would need to shutdown some equipment before he could proceed he stated he was authorized to jumper the meter plug-in while swapping the meter and keep the power on during the process.

There were initially two issues which mandated my requiring ComEd an appointment for this process:

1. Our back yard is locked.  We have a high fence and live in the West Humboldt Park area of Chicago.  Yes, it is just as safe as any other neighborhood in Chicago, perhaps even a bit safer because we don't have moms driving their kids to the school across the street as the talk on their cell phones, ignoring both the City of Chicago's mandatory hands free law for cell phones and the new state law which has zero tolerance for the use of a cell phone in a school zone;

2. We have some nice garden furniture, decorative statuary, and a rather well maintained garden in our back yard and we don't want the kids from the school across the street coming in and helping themselves to any of our garden art or picking the flowers off the blooming plants - something they do in the front yard all spring long while the Iris is blooming; 

3. We don't care to have any further attempts at having our down-spouts stolen.  While neither the gutters or downspouts are either aluminium or copper - they are PVC, they attempted to steal the largest downspout from our front yard and some friends of ours in Logan Square had all of the newly replaced copper downspouts on their home stolen last summer - just a few days after they had them replaced.  

Given the fact that the economy is NOT, in spite of what either the Wall Street Journal or the FED would like people to believe, getting any better, and given the fact that Orr High School's new aluminium bleacher seats are disappearing, one section at a time, we'd prefer to not come home to find all of our trees and plants cut down and our garden furniture and gutters gone.

Now it's Sunday, 28 March, five days after the new Smart Meter has been installed and I am working around the house trying to play catch up before I start another week of work when I never have time to do those things which always seem to pile into the list no matter how hard you work on it, and I get a call from the Blackstone Group . . .

Apart from the fact that I fully agree with their analysis of the fact that our economy is still in a crisis, what the hell does the Blackstone Group, an investment group which deals in everything from alternative asset management, private equity, real estate, mutual funds, and, yes, even though they are publicly stating the the economy is still in trouble, hedge funds - the product that put more than one investment company out of business and is still creating a strong undertow which will eventually surface and, along with the mortgage crisis, vacant business real estate, and failing banks, bring our economy back to it's knees far worse that what we saw in 2008 and 2009.

Getting back to the call, I answer the phone and it's a gentleman who identifies himself as representing the Blackstone Group.  He states that he is calling because, "ComEd will soon be placing Smart Meters into some neighborhoods and . . . "

I cut him off at that point and told him ComEd had already replaced my old analog meter with a Smart Meter and he becomes totally silent!

More silence . . . .

More silence . . . .

Now I am curious, so I ask him what this is all about - as he is beginning to hang up I might add.

He mumbles something to the effect that he was calling about the ComEd Smart Meter and then just hangs up.

OK, now I am curious.  Why would someone from the Blackstone group, who, somehow, got my name - exactly as it is on my ComEd bill, and got my phone number, which is not published, call me to discuss a future Smart Meter installation which has already been completed?

Hello caller ID.  I check the caller ID and there is none - probably because Vonage needs at least two rings to transmit the data to the phone.  No problem, I have Vonage and I can look up any phone call, either in-bound our out-bound, at any time.  So, I retrieve the number and call back.

The voice mail belongs to LaSalle Franklin at The Blackstone Group, but neither Mr Franklin, nor anyone else, it responding to my return call so I get his voice mail.  After pressing "2" to leave a message  [how archaic is that?   Well setup voice mail should never prompt you to press something to leave a message - it should just allow you to leave the message!] I leave a voice mail message requesting information as to:

1. Why is the Blackstone Group involved in calling ComEd customers who might receive Smart Meters on a Sunday afternoon?

2. What, exactly, is the Blackstone Group's relationship, or non-relationship, with ComEd?

3. How did someone from the Blackstone Group get my name, exactly as it is listed on my ComEd bill?

4. How did someone from the Blackstone Group get my unlisted, unpublished home phone number?

5. What was the purpose of calling me about my participation in ComEd's Smart Meter program?

6. Why did Mr Franklin, or whoever it was who called me at 1:48 PM, on Sunday, 28 March, 2010, from 312.423.4005, become unresponsive and refuse to give me any more details regarding the reasons for his call when I questioned him?

I'll wait a few days to see if anyone responds and then forward this case on to CUB to see if they can help demistify the experience . . .