Terrible Customer Service - CGE

Chile Headlines & Hot Topics
1

One recent issue seen in Chile is that while complaints of all sorts are aired at great length, nobody seems willing do anything to fix them. This state of affairs extends right down to the bottom of society, where I reside.

Last friday, CGE, our Chinese-owned electricity supplier, had a scheduled power cut that lasted from 10am to 3 pm. To protect our equipment, I disconnected the power at the main breaker ahead of time.
But when the power was restored in our sector, our property remained dead, no electricity.

I called the CGE emergency line at 4 pm; they promised to send a squad at 2am on Saturday.
They didn’t come. At 4 am, in frustration, I toggled the main breaker several times, and the power came on. There is obviously an intermittency inside the meter, either with the breaker contacts, or with the wiring.

On Saturday morning, reported the situation to CGE, this time, they informed that a Technician would be sent before 5pm. But he never showed up.

After another call, this time they advised a squad would arrive Saturday midnight No sign of them either.

This morning, Sunday 10 am, received an automated message (one of many) informing a time to repair of 6 hours. But have my doubts anyone will turn up.

If I hadn’t jiggled the breaker, we would have been without electricity for two days now since 10am on Friday morning. As it is, if the main breaker is operated again, we could lose power until the fault is repaired.
Even if they do show up and fix the problem, I intend to file a complaint with the SEC about the situation. Even a local CGE rep, contacted through Whatsapp admitted getting no response from the so-called “Emergency Service”.

Update: They didn’t come this Sunday afternoon either.

2

Its clear that CGE’s emergency service doesn’t function weekends. On four opportunities contacted their Call Centre (which seems to be located on some distant Caribbean Island) receiving the flimsiest of excuses for the four no-shows. Finally this Monday morning got a call from a subcontractor who promised to come today.

When even basic services don’t work reliably any more, how can Chile present itself as a technologically advancing nation?

3

Glad we don’t have CGE as our provider. I notice that nearby Melipilla and parts of Santiago that unfortunately are under their control always have programmed and unprogrammed interruptions.

4

The subcontractor finally arrived at midday, and replaced the breaker in the meter. One of its conductors was blackened so I suspect that was the real problem, a bad/loose contact.

If I hadn’t jiggled the breaker early Saturday am, which at least temporarily restored power, we would have been without electricity from last Friday until today Monday. Hopeless.

5

Yeah. We have them here and have had 3 long power cuts since the rainy season started. One was four hours when it was completely dry and sunny.

When I lived in Santiago, Movistar once lied and said they had come to my house to provide service three times and no one was home. There had been someone home every day. At least we’ve had GTD for internet for five years (has it been that long?) and the one time we had a problem that needed a tech to come to the house and he came the same afternoon. At least they’ve been good . . . so far!

6

The events of the last week dwarf our recent power outage. It’s been around eight days now since the storm that brought down thousands of electricity posts, and there are still many households without power. In the case of apartment blocks that are often all-electric, that means no lighting, or heating and drinking water. And if you live on the 20th floor, without elevators your apartment is virtually inaccessible.

Given the unreliability of the grid, many buildings have installed backup generators in the same way that faced with increased criminality, they have had to invest in private security systems - two more indications that Chile has “lost the plot” when it comes to nation management.

The government’s reaction to the massive and unprecedented loss of power is a typically political one. Instead of mobilizing Bomberos and the Army to assist in the cleanup , they are are threatening to terminate Italian-owned ENEL’s power distribution concession, (while Chinese CGE is being treated more leniently). And SENAPRED, the government’s disaster agency. brilla por su ausencia.

Chile’s cheap and cheerful overhead urban power distribution system makes it prone to failure. We often lose power when drunk drivers demolish the electricity posts, and recently, after one day of moderate rain our power went out for several hours, so the scale of the current disaster is hardly surprising given the violence of the recent storm. No doubt this current crisis will be forgotten in a couple of months, but what’s going to happen the next time Chile suffers a 2010-strength earthquake?

As usual, Tomás Mosciatti’s analysis of the situation puts this event into perspective, while offering little hope that things will improve in the future.

7

I had a good experience with CGE in 2019 during the worst firestorm in Chilean history. Living in a rural setting I expected very little because I had lived through a 2 week power outage caused by an ice storm in Québec Canada in the middle of winter. The only people who got generators before the stores ran out were the people that could afford them. Everybody else shivered in their homes or went to a municipal building to warm up. Two long weeks in the Canadian winter. The Hydro company finally got the power grid backup and barely offered an apology. Typical behaviour for a monopoly.

So in 2019 my expectations were very low because CGE had a monopoly. All the electric poles in the area burned down. But a surprise happened. On the third day without power some technicians from CGE showed up at my house with a generator and a couple of tanks of gas. They showed me how to run the generator and returned every day to refill the gas until the power was restored. I understand they did this for everybody in my rural region as they had restored the power to the urban region rather quickly. Finally the grid returned and the technicians came by to pick up the generator and the gas cans.

I naïvely thought that Chilean law dictated that monopolies had to be responsible to their clients. That doesn’t appear to be the case this year