Utility Happy To Return Money It Collected ‘In Error’ If You Waste More Time, Money On Asking

“We monitor our customer satisfaction metrics all the time to ensure we’re not letting anyone outside our circle of cronies experience any.”

Jerusalem, January 18 – A company that charged your account far in excess of what you owed them for the services or products it provided will gladly refund the extra if you jump through bureaucratic hoops and spend your other valuable time and money applying for the refund, a representative of the company announced today.

The Israel Electric Corporation collected a sum three times higher than your actual electricity consumption warranted for the billing period that ended in mid-December, documents indicate. Gviyat Yeter, an IEC spokeswoman, told reporters that if you want them to refund the money to your bank account, you may submit a written, notarized request by registered mail to be delivered between the hours of 8 and 9 A.M. on Tuesdays only, to their facility near Dimona, where registered mail delivery is unavailable. Alternatively, suggested Ms. Yeter, you can just let the company keep the money as a credit in your account, because you probably don’t have other bills to pay or expenses to meet in the next several months for which you need those funds.

“Customer satisfaction is important to us,” she explained. “As we are a government-approved monopoly, we can treat our customers like the feces they are and face no adverse consequences. So we monitor our customer satisfaction metrics all the time to ensure we’re not letting anyone outside our circle of cronies experience any.”

Analysts note that the ability of companies and other entities to take payment directly from a customer’s or citizen’s bank account represents a phenomenon not unique to Israel, but certainly avoidable. “In the US and Canada, for example, a person can choose when and how much of a utility bill to pay,” observed Buttitzmai Mani, of Deloitte and Touche Consulting. “Penalties may accrue for late or incomplete payment, but at least the individual has control over cash flow and can decide for him or herself how to allocate limited resources.”

“In Israel that’s not an option, since the companies that do this have engineered connections in government and banking that basically give them carte blanche,” she continued. “Theoretically, the arrangement has to be approved in advance by the account holder, but once the signature is in place, anything goes. With the socialist mentality so strong among those in government, your money isn’t actually yours: it belongs to the government monopolies, to banks, to insurance companies, to utilities, and of course to the government tax authorities – basically to everybody but you. Who are you, anyway?”

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