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This is highly refined (I'm gonna stop just short of calling if "pure") FUD. In practice nobody gets their utilities shut off except people who were intending

This is highly refined (I'm gonna stop just short of calling if "pure") FUD. In practice nobody gets their utilities shut off except people who were intending to pay their bill and slip through the bureaucratic cracks (elderly with kids managing it is a common scenario) or the person paying the bill doesn't live there and stopped paying (e.g. landlord in foreclosure so they stopped paying). I can't speak for literally every municipality but there are defined timelines and it takes months to shut utilities off. By the time they get around to shutting off your water or electricity you've already missed god knows how many payments on your rent and been through the full eviction proceedings. I've also never seen a utility provider that won't accept minimum payments. Providing some sort of financial assistance services, payment plans and doing everything possible to not shut people's utilities off is generally a requirement of getting a government granted utility monopoly in the first place. Anyone who has to choose between utilities and something else should choose the something else. Utilities tend to be incredibly forgiving and willing to work with you if your financial situation doesn't permit payment in full. In some jurisdictions the debt doesn't even get reported (they just keep trying to collect)

objectivetruth 6y ago
I'm willing to use my real account, not a throwaway, to say that the original article is correct and YOU are wrong. For one thing, in a country the size of the US with tens of thousands of jurisdiction/utility-provider combos, there's no possible way you can authoritatively declare what happens "in practice," as you acknowledge in the next sentence. Here's another: I have had this happen to me, 30 days after a missed payment. Multiple times. So has the author, apparently. Just wanted to make sure the HN readership, which skews anti-poor and anti-empathy, doesn't use your post as more ammo without at least SOME counter.

objectivetruth 6y ago

I'm willing to use my real account, not a throwaway, to say that the original article is correct and YOU are wrong. For one thing, in a country the size of the US with tens of thousands of jurisdiction/utility-provider combos, there's no possible way you can authoritatively declare what happens "in practice," as you acknowledge in the next sentence. Here's another: I have had this happen to me, 30 days after a missed payment. Multiple times. So has the author, apparently. Just wanted to make sure the HN readership, which skews anti-poor and anti-empathy, doesn't use your post as more ammo without at least SOME counter.