Under a stipulated agreement with the Georgia Public Service Commission, Southern Company Gas (SCG) will credit $45,000 to some of its customer accounts and contribute $100,000 to Georgia’s Low Income Heat Energy Assistance Program to settle a case in which it allegedly sent out 97,000 improper disconnect notices to the state’s customers.

The commission charged that the retail marketer had threatened to disconnect customers with less than the state’s required 15-day notice and required customers to pay their entire bill instead of only the amount past due more than 45 days. The improper notices were apparently sent out between September 2002 and March 2003, and gave customers 10 days to pay or be disconnected.

“The rules are in the law, they are not tricky,” said Robert B. Baker Jr., chairman of the commission. “We hope we won’t have these cases in the future and that our staff can spend more time assisting customers.” The commissioners voted unanimously to the agreement.

According to Commissioner Angela Speir, SCG is the fourth natural gas marketer this year that allegedly violated state natural gas laws and commission rules. “Marketers have had their warning shot. If we see these types of violations continue, we will seek stronger sanctions.”

The commission also is evaluating the proposed use of automatic renewal provisions for fixed-rate gas contracts. Its policy statement against the use of automatic renewal provisions resulted from a new tariff filed by Shell Energy Services Co., which would have permitted the company to automatically renew a customer’s service contract without receiving affirmative consent from the consumer.

Staff at the commission identified several instances where Shell Energy’s gas consumers were given only a few days to respond to a renewal, and had received “misleading and inaccurate information” about the contract renewal. The commission plans to evaluate the policy statement in conjunction with a proposed rulemaking that is pending.

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