Give Me My Money Back!

I got a letter a couple weeks ago from a class action settlement management company regarding a refund due to me as an international traveler between 1996 and 2006.

It seems there were some aggressive fees charged by credit card companies for overseas purchases and cash withdrawals and some law firm somewhere saw huge bucks in their future filing a lawsuit on our behalf.

The letter asks if I am willing to settle for a one time immediate refund of $25 (which they REALLY want me to do so the lawfirm can keep the rest of what is really owed me), or if I prefer, I can spend my time filling out various details to back-up any claims that I traveled extensively to get a bigger refund which will take months and months to get.

Hopefully this check will come along about the same time as my tax rebate from the US government as part of the new economic stimulus plan (that, incidentally, John McCain didn’t vote for, thank you very much).

This got me thinking about another class action suit that could be filed on behalf of consumers that might yield huge refunds. And I had this thought when I typically have my lame and stupid thoughts- while on the treadmill wishing 45 minutes would go by faster. My mind starts to wander in an effort to ignore the pain in my legs.

Is the electricity that is required to make that metal dial spin around in my electric meter charged to me? I mean, if the electric company wants to monitor my electricity usage so they can bill me, isn’t the cost of the electricity that makes that thingy go round and round their responsibility? They put it there to record my personal usage of electricity.

If I am getting charged for it, I think that’s fraud. Its stealing. The electric company is stealing from me. I researched the amount of electricity it would take to move that metal dial (about 15Watts), multiplied that by 24 hours to get the total Watt-hours (360WH), then multiplied that by 365 days (131,400WH), and then divided that by 100 to get the total Killowatt-hours (1,314KWH).

According to the US Department of Energy (in 2006), the average cost of consumer electricity was 9.86 cents/KWH. So, that means that little metal dial spinning around my electric meter costs me about $130 a year. Multiply that over the last 23 years my parents have not been paying the electric bill, and I should see somewhere around a $3,000.00 refund.

I’d like a refund from the Middle Tennessee Electric Company please. If possible by this spring when I get my tax rebate and international bank fee refund.

Now that’s what I call an electrifying economic stimulus plan.