Utility's error ends in family's death

DTE Energy is the utility monopoly in Detroit. DTE is known for particularly greedy practices, especially regarding reporting customers' data to credit bureaus (to compile your credit score which you have to pay to access).

Last week, DTE cut off the power to a family's house. This forced them to use a gas generator, which filled their home with gas. A man and 3 children died.

Now it turns out that DTE wasn't even supposed to shut off their power. By DTE's own admission, the company had received notice of the family's bankruptcy weeks ago - which was supposed to prevent the electric from being shut off. (The man had declared bankruptcy after losing his job.) But this notice had the wrong address, and DTE didn't bother to verify the address on the notice, as it was supposed to.

By the time DTE realized its mistake, it was too late.

This is particularly inexcusable, because the electric bill was always sent to the right address.

(I blackballed the Detroit News as a source for this blog last year, but I'm making an exception for this story, because I can't find it covered anywhere else.)

(Source: http://www.detnews.com/article/20090718/METRO01/907180366/Address-glitch-led-to-shutoff-at-family-s-home)