Paying your Walton EMC bill by electronic check? Think twice...

I have had good experiences with Walton EMC, except one time.

I thought it might be a good idea to share this info with you, so you won't end up in a similar predicament.

Here's what happened to me. I paid by electronic check at Walton EMC's website. This was about a year ago, so I don't remember the dollar amount I paid exactly, but I think it was over $200 or very close to it. I paid my bill and there was nothing out of the ordinary about the transaction.

Until I started receiving notices from my credit union that I had bounced checks.

WHUT?!?!? How did that happen, besides my obvious lack of math skills?

I did some investigating, and Walton EMC had some kind of billing glitch and deducted the payment amount from my checking account several times. So of course, the money for my other bills wasn't there as it should have been, thus the bouncification* of my checks.

I called my credit union, and they agreed to remove the insufficient check fees, but they couldn't do anything about the multiple withdrawals, I would have to call Walton EMC to fix that.

So I phoned Walton EMC and was told that, since I paid by electronic check, there was nothing they could do (HUH?!?)...if I had paid by credit card, they could just credit the money back, but that all they could do about the multiple withdrawals was let those 'ride' as pre-payments toward my future Walton EMC bills.

I don't know about you, but I don't have enough money to pay my future bills, I struggle with today's bills! I thought that was a pretty unfair situation, and I don't believe that nothing could be done about it. If they could withdraw money, they should be able to put money back in, wouldn't you think?

If you go to their site and pay online, do not pay by electronic check. If you want to pay them at their site, use your credit card. Or, if you have online billing with your bank or credit union, pay by electronic check that way, but don't do it directly with Walton EMC's site, or you won't have any protection.

On a happier note, I just received my e-bill notification from Walton EMC. I am sooo glad to see that the bill is going down a bit finally, now that we have a break from the intense heat! My bill combines electric and natural gas. My new bill is $177.18.

*thanks to Early Cuyler for the wordification.

UPDATE 30 October 2007: I found out in my Walton EMC bill that Walton EMC has another company, called SEDC, handle their payment processing. That is probably why my situation couldn't be fixed very easily.