I don't want to bury the actual reason I'm extremely dissatisfied with National Grid within a deep rant about monopolies and corruption. I'm naive enough to think this post might accomplish more than literally nothing, but also jaded enough to realize barking up *that* tree will get you particularly nowhere. So:
Website is a nightmarish hellscape. It is a piece of garbage. It's so bad, I almost feel like paper billing and sending in a hand-written check every month is easier than dealing with this. For some strange reason, if you move, National Grid is the only company on the planet that forces you to do every single piece of the leg-work about your account entirely on your own. I simply moved from Troy to Albany, and simply having NG know to bill me at a different address was the single most difficult experience about moving.
Before moving, I called, and was told I'd be all set, all information moved/transferred. Still getting bills from old address. I call, their support services are down. I get a live person on the phone, simply to tell me to call back in a few days because their support services are down. What? So I go on chat the next day and it seems like the guy understands what's going on, says he's moving everything in the system. After about 20 minutes it seems like he's got everything set. Auto pay, new address, all set.
Month goes by, still getting billed for old address, and get this - because they're still billing me for my old address, I'm getting a notice that my bill for my current address is overdue! So in their system they know I've moved, but they are still sending me invoices for my old address but not for my new address but will say I'm past due on the new address I'm not even receiving bills for yet! What?!
So I get on the phone and explain the situation, begging for someone to just get this right. They arrogantly, but at least are finally honest, explain to me that I have to do all this on my own through the website. I said I did that, they asked, "Did you create a new account?" I said no because I edited all the information in my current account to my new address. She said no that's not what you do, you have to create an account. Then why do I have the ability to change that information?!?!? And who in the world thinks you have to make a new account for National Grid every time you move? Ok - fine - I do it. Make a new account. It's NOT over.
You can't make a new account until you have no balance on your old account. But I am not going to pay a balance for a property I no longer own. So yet another call to their horrible phone service, explaining alllll of the above alllll over again. Finally get that removed from my name. Finally able to create an account, a few days later of course because it doesn't update right away. Still, NOT over.
Remember the past due balance on my new address? NOW I can pay it, but not online of course, even though I already have all my same bank information in the system! Nope, you gotta make a manual payment, and then you can sign up for auto pay. But you can't sign up for auto pay until your payment is actually process through their system. So you have to pay, and then log in later at the magical moment when the payment is process, but not late enough that you have a balance again. Today, SIX MONTHS after living at my new address, I finally logged in at the right time and was able to sign up for auto pay. Still, NOT over.
Auto pay doesn't take effect for two to three weeks! So I have to pay manually 3 weeks after I signed up for auto pay! MY GOD! Seriously, at this point, it's like they purposely made it this difficult. I don't know how it can be that bad on accident. Seriously, if NG's problem was simple neglect, it'd somehow be better than what it is now. I cannot believe how bad their system is. I still have my old address in the system when I log in. You can't make it go away. So bad. So, so bad. So, terribly bad. read more
