It’s shockingly bad customer service.
Con Edison left some Brooklynites without power for days during a recent deadly cold snap — and now some residents say the company is leaving them out in the cold on their reimbursement claims.
Some locals said Con Edison has prematurely denied some of their refund requests, while others said they still don’t know if they’ll get paid or if their claims have even been received.
“Trying to rectify this with Con Ed, I was on hold for two days … and they were just so disrespectful,” said Park Slope resident James Kilmeade, who spent two nights in a hotel so that his pet bearded dragon wouldn’t freeze to death.
“The people wouldn’t give me their last names or any employee ID … and they never called me back,” Kilmeade added, saying he put in a $200 reimbursement claim for spoiled food.
He hasn’t heard back.
Kilmeade said he hasn’t even asked to be reimbursed for the hundreds he spent at the hotel, which he booked because there was no power for his 9-year-old pet’s heat lamp.
“I had to smuggle her into a hotel, basically, in a blanket,” the 30-year-old said.
The blowback comes after Con Ed got the green light to hike electric bills by 10.4% and inflate gas bills 15.8% over the next three years – a move which is set to cost the average Big Apple resident an eye-watering $600 more per year by 2028.
A Con Edison representative said the company is in the process of paying “validated claims” for the hundreds of residential customers in Brooklyn who were without power for more than 48 hours during a massive outage that began on Jan. 31 — smack in the middle of an extended Arctic deep freeze in the city.
Con Edison offers up to $655 in reimbursements for customers facing spoiled food and prescription medication after some power outages that last over 12 hours, according to its website.
The roughly six-day blackout across Park Slope, Gowanus and Boerum Hill was sparked by a manhole fire started due to melting snow and salt on the road, which can corrode wires and underground equipment, according to the energy provider.
But resident A.C. claimed the utility provider said the outage didn’t qualify him for a refund.
“They said it was due to the salt getting into their equipment, and I guess they don’t usually pay out for those instances,” he said. “I think they should cover it, just because salt is foreseeable … It’s not like it was a surprise.”
City Council member Shahana Hanif (D-Brooklyn) is now demanding Con Edison reconsider claims and offer a plan on what it’s doing to prevent future outages.
“Neighbors carried food up dark stairwells, shared heaters and blankets, and boiled water for warmth,” Hanif wrote in a Feb, 27 letter co-signed by six other city and state lawmakers.
“Many incurred real financial losses and faced unsafe living conditions through no fault of their own,” the pols added, and “they should not be left to shoulder the burden of a prolonged outage that resulted from infrastructure failure.”