Sumner Shortcuts

I’m a Hendersonville resident.  I’m also an NES (Nashville Electric Service) customer.

Now, I don’t know how many other Sumner County residents are on NES service–probably not a majority.  But there must be others besides me, right?  I mean… everyone in Rivergate and the rest of Goodlettsville is on NES.

Anyway, this is a consumer warning regarding NES, as reported by The Consumerist (one of my favorite sites, and one that you should definitely read often).

Seems that NES is starting a new program in a few months that rounds up your bill to the next nearest dollar, and then takes the amount rounded up and donates it to charity.  There are a few problems with this.  First of all, NES picks the charities, not you.  So… if you’re not down with the pet causes of the NES brass… tough.

Secondly, and perhaps most alarming, is that NES is going to auto-enroll every one of their customers into this program without permission.  You’ll have to go here and complete a form in order to be “opted out.”

From the NES website:

Beginning January 2009, NES residential customers will be automatically enrolled in Change for Charity.  Being enrolled simply means that your electric bill is rounded up each month to the next highest dollar.  The change that is collected goes into the NES Change for Charity Fund to be distributed to charitable 501(c)(3) organizations that provide benevolent services in the community.

This is fairly outrageous to me.  What a stupid, stupid idea.  I don’t care if we’re talking about less than $12 of my money per year… it’s ridiculous that NES would even consider doing this without my permission.

Can someone… anyone… tell me how this is even legal?  Because I didn’t agree to it and it involves the taking of my money without consent, which, to me, sounds a lot like stealing.  I could care less that they have charitable intentions with my money.

With the negative press this thing is receiving (Consumerist is a hugely popular national website), I will not be surprised if they reverse this decision soon.  That being said… get thee to the form and fill it out ASAP, unless you’re fine with the whole thing.  I personally already pay too much for electricity as it is.  Maybe I’m alone here, but during an economic down time, I’m not actively looking for ways to spend more money, believe it or not.