Michael of Franklin, NJ, writes
A propane truck had an accident and struck a utility pole just down the road from me. I was running a disk utility on my computer the night of the accident.

Police, fire, ambulance, and hazmat teams were when the accident happened in the early afternoon and it was not until later that night the power was intentionally turned off by the power company. The power company had plenty of time to notify the customers of a power interruption. Doing so would have allowed me time to shut off my computer so no damage would occur.

I sent a letter explaining the damages to the power company and they responded in a deceptive letter saying that a car struck the pole and interrupted the power service. That is a direct lie, and they said this in a letter to me that they are not responsible for interruptions in service caused bye the car that struck the pole the night of the accident.

The electrical supply was interrupted by GPU themselves with no notification to any customers. They turned off the power themselves to change the pole in question and some six or so hours later they returned service to my area. The damage to my computer had already been done.

My computer is like a part of me and personal data was lost that I will never recover. I had to replace the hard drive in my computer. After replacing the hard drive, I had to set up all the hardware again and then install what programs I had to make the machine usable again. It took an entire day just to make the computer run again and then three to four days of work to set up the programs and personal effects I had on my computer.

Tech support today start at $40.00 to as much as $200.00 per hour and I feel I should be reimbursed for the hard drive replacement and for some time spent making my computer serviceable again. A replacement hard drive is about $120.00 and a typical set-up fee would be about $50.00 to $100.00. I feel a price range of $175.00 to $200.00 is fair.

It might be fair but it's not going to happen. Utilities are not required to notify customers of interruptions. Besides, Michael is not being fair to GPU. They may have had to shut the grid down to repair the damage resulting from the accident. Just because the accident happened a few hours earlier doesn't mean the interruption was caused by something else. Everyone who relies on a computer should have a battery back-up, which Michael could buy for under $200 in any computer store.

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