Had a runaround with the electricity and gas company.
Brought it on myself. Somehow when pulling paperwork together for my income tax return I moved the bill into the "paid" pile without doing so. No clue until a week or so ago when a shut off notice came by mail.
Immediately paid the arrears and new month's billings, but it took some time to post with a weekend in between. Checked on Tuesday (yesterday) though, and the phone-bot said the payment was received and I had a zero balance at this time.
Then another 'bot left a message last night, asking me to call back at such-and-so number. Tried that today, but when it prompted me to enter the phone # where the message had been left for me I did so and then it hung up. Tried this again from the phone that got left the message. Same hangup.
Called the number from the shut off notice mailing and sat on hold 25 minutes. Finally a nice lady picked up, we went over everything, and I got an old name off the account (from over 25 years ago).
She then went on a hard-sell for a free cash saving program. The deal is that they notify of a rough electricity day and you agree to shift power use to low-demand hours. The more you can shift, the bigger the billing credit you receive. People with whole-house backup power save the most. I opted in, and hope I don't regret it.
I asked her if those are the days that Canada shuts off power. We both had a big old laugh, our power has nothing to do with Canada.
Said goodbye, then somebody else came on the line. Very hard to hear, and trying hard to sell their major appliance repair service account. Thanked her and turned it down.
Quite a runaround, entire problem of my own making anyway, and I probably made it worse by joking around. Hopefully this is the end of it.