People continue to resist DTE’s forced installation of smart
meters, refusing to cave in to their shut-off notices and threats. This has
left DTE confounded and uncertain and unable to settle upon a decisive course
of action. Over the last two-and-a-half years they have continually reinvented their
letters, notices, and threats in the hopes that they find some magic bullet
to stop the resistance. Bottom line: Your resistance is working! DTE is
not shutting off electricity to most customers to whom it sends notices (and,
in a crazy twist, it is shutting off
some customers who agree to allow a smart meter to be installed on their home).
Because of the strong resistance DTE is showing, and because
of the publicity around the relatively small number of shut-offs, DTE is now
going door-to-door, threatening customers with analog meters that if they do
not accept the smart meter, their electricity will be shut off. They are hoping
that people get scared and let them put a meter on, on the spot. For the most
part, customers continue to refuse installation, and those customers are not being shut off.
Below we discuss some of the history of these notices and
customer responses. Following that, we outline what you should do if you get a
shut-off notice, some other kind of letter, or DTE personnel banging on your
door or visiting your property.
Following that, you will find our original pages on what to
do if you get a letter from DTE. DTE is still working to complete its initial
installations in the northern parts of its territory.
Table of Contents
1)
Recent History of
Letters and Shut-offs
a)
Shut-off Notices, the
First Incarnation
b) Unsuccessful, DTE Reverts to Its “Health and Safety Hazard
Letter”
c) Confounded Because
Most Customers Refuse to Cave in, DTE
Decides That a Gift Certificate Combined with a Shut-off Notice Might Induce
People to Call and Accept the Smart Meter
2)
Even People Who Call to
Accept the Smart Meter Have Been Shut Off
3) What DTE Is Trying to Accomplish—Rather Unsuccessfully
4) DTE’s Most Recent Tactic, as of Mid-November 2017
5) What to Do If You
Receive a Shut-off Notice or Other Threat
6)
Recent History of Letters and Shut-offs
Shut-off Notices, the First Incarnation
DTE began sending out actual
shut-off notices to customers in August 2017. As usual, they have tried
varying tactics. In one instance, they sent shut-off notices to at least 11
Ann-Arbor–area
residents. Eight people refused to respond to their letter. A protest was held
at the home of Linda Kurtz, leader of the Smart Meter Education Network. DTE
never showed up at her home, and never shut off her electric service. DTE did
shut off most of the other customers, but did not do so in one day. Channel 7 did a story on the shut-offs, we were featured on
the front page of the Ann Arbor News, and appeared on MLive and in other
outlets.
Unsuccessful, DTE Reverts to Its “Health and Safety Hazard Letter”
Perhaps because of the publicity, DTE reverted to its previous letter that asserts, without foundation, that
a locked meter is a health and safety hazard. DTE, with the blessing of the Michigan Public
Service Commission, was using this letter as a pretext to shut off electricity
to customers who did not want smart meters. (Read this and this to learn why a
locked meter is not a hazard.) DTE had been sporadically sending this letter
out since March of 2015. When sending the letter out, it tried various tactics
to get people to cave in: Sometimes it sent the letter to customers scattered
widely across its service territory, some over 100 miles apart. At other times,
it would select customers in one city. In every case, DTE has hoped that customers
would cave in. They hoped that the customers receiving the notices and getting
shut off would talk to each other, and that everyone would then fold, accepting
the smart meter without a fight. Most customers refused to fold. After nearly
two-and-a-half years of that pretextual letter, DTE moved to an actual shut-off
notice. When that didn’t work in Ann Arbor, DTE went back to the “health and
safety hazard” letter, sending it out just a couple of weeks later to customers
in the Brighton area. While some customers did call DTE and accede to their
demands, most did not. DTE was foiled again, and state representative Lana Theis is fully on board with Analog Meter Choice!
Confounded Because Most Customers Refuse to
Cave in,
DTE Decides That a
Gift Certificate Combined with a Shut-off Notice
Might Induce People to Call and Accept the
Smart Meter
Hmm, thought DTE. What
do we do now? Yeah, we get a few people caving in here and there, but mostly
people are refusing. So DTE reverted to the shut-off notice that Linda
Kurtz and others had been sent, but with a twist. It now threatened customers
with shut-off, yet inexplicably added a carrot, a special offer for its “valued
customers”:
DTE sent out
scores of these letters threatening an October 23, 2017 shut-off date, and has
sent out a few threatening a later date. Most customers have refused to
respond. DTE has shut off customers here and there since October 2017, but is
mostly leaving people alone. Of the hundreds of letters sent out, only about
10% of “valued DTE customers” were shut off. That is good odds that you will be
left alone!
Even People Who Call to Accept the Smart
Meter Have Been Shut Off
There are also people who called DTE after receiving the
shut-off notice. They told DTE they would accept the smart meter (or the
non-transmitting smart meter) on their home. DTE scheduled an appointment for
meter replacement. DTE went out and shut off some of those people anyway,
including 73-year-old Irene Robinson of Hamburg Township near Pinckney. They
showed up on a Sunday morning, a week before they were scheduled to replace the
meter, and simply shut off her electricity. She’s not the only one. It seems
that whether you call DTE or not, your electric service may be cut. It’s all a
lottery. If you get a shut-off notice, your electricity might be cut—but
it might not. If you call DTE and tell
them you will let them place the hazardous smart meter on your home, your
electricity might stay on—or
it might be cut, even though you’ve made the appointment.
What DTE Is Trying to Accomplish—Rather
Unsuccessfully
DTE has
tried, through all the iterations of its threats and letters and shut-off
notices, to find that magic bullet that will cause not only the person
receiving the letter to cave in, but everyone else that person knows, too. They
hope that if Mary Jane gets a shut-off notice or is shut off, she will talk to
her neighbors who are resisting, inform all her friends and acquaintances, with
the end result that all these people freak out and call DTE to accept the smart
meter. They have hoped that if they send letters to a few people in widely
scattered parts of the state, it will seem like DTE is on the march. It hasn’t
worked. They have hoped that if they send letters to a couple handfuls of
people in one city, the whole city will cave. It hasn’t worked.
DTE’s Most Recent Tactic, as of
Mid-November 2017
DTE’s
attempts to scare and intimidate with shut-off notices are producing poor
results for the utility. Now DTE is trying yet another tactic. It’s latest
letter combines the wording of many different letters it has sent out over the
last five years. Here is the letter:
picture
This letter
combines elements of the “health and safety hazard” letter with other features.
Among other things, DTE—and the Michigan Public Service
Commission—have learned from the formal complaint I, Linda Kurtz,
filed against DTE in September 2017. My complaint was denied, yet DTE has now
incorporated some of my allegations into its letter. Did you know that according to
DTE a deck can be a safety hazard warranting shut-off? According to the
letter, you must remove your deck in order to comply with the law. Regarding
the cooperation between DTE and the MPSC: I was told straight up by the head of
the complaints department at the MPSC that the commission had approved DTE’s
“health and safety hazard” letter and was fully supporting its contents and
claims.
Most interestingly, DTE has dialed it
back once again. This latest letter is not a shut-off notice but instead, like
the shut-off notice, a stick combined with a carrot. Continued customer resistance, the
many TV news stories, and the concerted work of Senator Patrick Colbeck’s
office on behalf of customers who have been mistreated by DTE are having an
effect. Goliath is meeting his David.
We post links
to media stories on shut-offs on our Alerts and
Breaking News page, and also on Facebook.
What to Do If You Receive a Shut-off Notice or Other Threat
1.
Call
us at 972-2677 (area code 734), and follow the instructions there for
connecting with us.
2.
Don’t
call DTE until you talk to us.
3.
Email
us with your name, city, county, and phone number and tell us the type of
letter you received. If you don’t see it on this site, please attach a copy.
Our email address is SmartMeterEducationNetwork@gmail DOT com (replace the
“DOT” with a period). Please put
“Shut-off Notice” in the subject line so that we can quickly find your email!!
4.
Remember, DTE doesn’t shut off most
people.
5.
Calling DTE to allow
them to put on a meter guarantees you nothing. You could schedule DTE to come
out and put on an opt-out meter or smart meter, and they might come out and
shut you off anyway.
6. Know that if your electricity were to be cut off, you can get your
service restored.
7.
Know that we have
generators available if necessary.
8.
If
you do call DTE:
a.
Every
encounter you have with DTE should be recorded. DTE has lied multiple times to
many people, but unfortunately people rarely record the conversations.
b.
Get
the name (and and I.D.) of the person you talk with. Write down the date, time,
and length of the call, and make notes on what was said. Do this for every
call, without fail!
9.
Every person who gets a
threatening letter from DTE needs to email every
single member of the Michigan Legislature. That contact info can be found
on our Analog Meter Choice Bill page. All you have to do is copy and paste the
emails. There’s no excuse for not letting the legislature know what is going
on!
We recommend that you do not contact
DTE. As we said, DTE has sent out hundreds of shut-off notices. Only a few handfuls
of people have been shut off. Moreover, even if you call DTE and accept the
smart meter, they might come out and shut you off! It is better to wait and see
what happens. You will probably be passed over. If you call them, you are more
on their radar than ever.
Only one person has been shut off in the last couple of weeks.
If DTE personnel come by your home and
threaten shut-off, simply tell them you are not ready to accept the meter. You
can read more on our Alerts and Breaking News page.
