Posted on 03/08/2007 8:05:12 AM PST by Abathar
CARTERVILLE, Illinois -- A southern Illinois man who's fed up with higher electric rates has come up with a way to show his displeasure while paying his bill.
Robert Hancock said his monthly power bill jumped nearly 200 percent -- to $526.62.
So he's going to send Ameren 52,662 pennies.
Hancock said he's worked things out with a local bank to get the coins and with the post office to mail the money.
It will cost about $50 extra for postage. But Hancock said that if he can cause Ameren a little inconvenience, it's worth it to him.
Are you sure pennies are still made of copper? I think I remember several years back that they quite using copper for making pennies when the cost of copper went way up.
According to Wikipedia, one penny weighs 2.35 grams
2.35 grams * 52 662 = 123.7557 kilograms
That is 272.8 pounds of pennies! Postal rates must be lower than I thought if he can mail 270+ pounds for just $50. I even tried the online postage calculator on the USPS website. When I entered 273 pounds, I got an error message that it exceeds the 70 pound limit.
The pennies are money. If the company refuses his payment he does not owe anything any more. Enforcing that will be difficult. It's only government agencies that have the unmitigated arrogance to dictate how a person can pay his/her taxes.
Better to spend some of that extra money on carbon offsets. I just happen to have some for sale.
That would be a waste. Fast food places take your money before you get your order.
Most pennies today are 97.6 percent zinc and only 2.4 percent copper.
It's not the utility's fault that prices have gone up so much. He would be better off sending bags of cow dung to the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and NRDC.
I wonder what his house is like. That sounds like a pretty steep bill.
I'd be without electricity because this guy sent them pennies. Wow, that power company is gonna HUNT ME DOWN!
Dope.
I read that the treasury is taking a loss on pennies even though they're mostly zinc.
Hi A.D., As you know Ameren Cilco sends the gas and electric bill together. I noticed on the bill I got about a week ago that the electric part was higher than the gas and I heat with gas. I haven't paid that much attention before, usually I just pay it without noticing the break down.
Is the situation the same with you?
You are right of course about gov interference. There would not have been a huge increase in electric rates at the first of the year if gov had stayed out of it to begin with.
It is what it is and I pay every time. It's not like I can change electric companies. Sort of like my cable bill, trash pick up bill, water bill etc. I owe it, I pay it.
Keith in Iowa: No.... See: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1120208723965
Non Sequitur.
That thought struck me too, (about the weight of the pennies), I've mailed heavy packages before and it's not cheap. I never have mailed anything that weighed as much as 70 lbs and didn't know about that limit.
Think what you wish...
Fact is, a business is free not to accept the payment as illustrated in the story, or, if they accept the payment, they are free to extract the cost of doing so from the idiot making the stunt payment.
Fine, but they care nothing of your opinion, and there's no reason they should. I hope they send him a nice surcharge for their processing costs on his next bill.
200% Holy Cow!
Did he use 200% more energy? His rate went up 200%??? Who else got a 200% increase? There must be more than one ticked off person.
jw
Good point, but as 3 of the 8 pennies in my change dish are pre-'82, I'll warm the hobby smelter up anyway.... :)
Our court received an 80 pound bag of loose pennies for a ticket. The pennies were returned COD, with an order to appear in person in front of the Court. The trip was several hundred miles. I guess the guy had a new insight into paying tickets and slowing down.
Would be good to know how much to send 4 separate packages.
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