I don't blame folks for getting charged when they *don't* use electricity. Back during the first Arab Oil Crisis, I was living in a town that at the time had a municipal electric public company. In response the crisis, the company ran a brilliant conservation campaign, one that included excellent tips on how to conserve not only electricity, but other energy sources, such as natural gas. The campaign was successful beyond its crafters wildest dreams. BUT, the inevitible "but" came into play. I went to pay my electiric bill one month, and hadn't really noted the amount yet nor examined the bill closely at all. When I saw a line of about 35-40 people ahead of me, I just sighed and took a place. Right about then, the elderly woman at the front of the line hollered, "NO! I'm NOT going to pay a surcharge of [so many percent -- I forget the amount] just because I did everything YOU told me to do and stopped doing what YOU told me NOT to do! Get me a supervisor!" A supervisor indeed came out and told her he would look into her case. But he didn't count on her words galvanizing every single one of the rest of us to *also* refuse to pay the surcharge, especially since the electric company's pi*s-poor "justification" was that "our campaign has been TOO successful and now we're running short on cash." The city backed down in the end, and die-hard activists ensured the city council didn't sneak in a tax to cover the shortfall. Instead, the city council ordered moves to achieve greater efficiency by the company, which it made, quickly saving enough money to cover its shortfall. Let me say I don't think the managers at the electric company were trying to see anyone shafted. This was pretty new territory for a smaller city -- a year-round population of about 60,000 at the time, but which swelled to around 80,000 when the city's two universities were in session during the autumn and spring semesters. After all, it was the *first* oil crises we had ever faced. What irked most of us was that there was no warning. Even members of the city council were caught flat-footed. (I vaguely knew one of them, and when we happened to run into each other one night in a crowded restaurant, we shared a table. He brought it up, complaining bitterly about the political heat he was taking from his constituency -- which didn't include me, and he knew that -- because the electric folks hadn't realized they needed to give at least the city authorities a head's-up. Good luck to the folks facing a surcharge now -- go raise hell.