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Today while I was out, CFE came by and reprogrammed my electric meter and left a card in my mail box with a brochure and a note that I should use the card on Aug. 1. I did not request this monthly service and did not sign for anything as I was not home. I called the phone number on the brochure 071. I pressed 0 and held until I got a person. Asked for someone that speaks English. When I got that person I asked what was done. I told her I travel regularly and often pre-pay my account so my electricity does not go off. She said you cannot do that with this new service and card. The problem with how this operates has been discussed in other topics. So she confirmed my address, phone number, and corner street and put in an order to cancel service. I plan to go to Jocotopec CFE on Wed. to return the card with the work order to return my meter to the bi monthly plan.

I have never had an angry moment or a tantrum here in Mexico but am planning to have one since I am fluent in Spanish if they give me any problems at CFE.

Just a warning that I understood you used to have to sign and agree to the service. Now they are installing it while you are not home and just leaving the card. I posted the phone number in case anyone else has this problem. They can create a work order to cancel this service and reprogram your meter from headquarters where they speak English.

Thinking some words now I can't write here.

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Raise hell, the scammers are paid on comission and you are burdened with months of hassle to return to normal.

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They read it from the street. They can see it through the bars but not get at it.

Very true, but legally they can claim that they're not allowed on the property, if trouble ever arises. Happened to a friend last year.

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as we posted in the Mexico General section all of us smart meter users around the Ajijic plaza were turned off at 5:30pm on saturday july 11th. we weren't given any notice of the new payment date or proceedures and we were all paid up on our bi-monthly billing as of june 25th. we had to close on a saturday night and it cost us in business more than our total bill! and on monday bancomer wouldn't accept a past due bill so off to Chapala to pay a whopping 64p. the old bills told the rate per unit and how much over you are into the higher cost catagory but, the new ones not. this is not an improvement for the customers but a power grab by the CFE. the question is where the impetuous to do this is coming from--UN Agenda 21 perhaps. it certainly wasn't the Mexican people clamoring for the technology.

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My sympathies on your problem, especially since you have a restaurant to run. Thankfully I was not away and was able to deal with it the same day. Hopefully they will honor the work order to return to normal. My guess is they are trying to cut employees (meter readers) and delivering a bill - both money savers for them. I always prepay money on my bill when I travel and have a positive balance now. If I had known they could do this I would have put cages on both my meters years ago. I have a second meter for the casita that always has a low bill and they didn't change that one so they still have to come out an read that one.

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Yes Spencer, I plan to raise hell and I can't even remember the last time I lost my temper. I plan to take to card to CFE and the cancellation work order number and ask for the jefe in Jocotopec - the boss to return the card.

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Well I just came back from Jocotopec and cancelled the "new service". They gave me a cancellation work order number. So I have this one and the one from central office. We'll see what happens next week. I have two meters, one not digital. I have me electrician coming to change all important breakers to the non-digital meter and build a cage for it. I hope that stops them from changing that meter. Next step if this doesn't work is solar! And I don't use much electricity so would not normally do that. But am sick of dealing with new problems in Mexico! I've lived here 15 years and have never seen so many problems - banking, electricity, capital gains on house sales. Lots of people I know leaving Mexico for the US.

The same thing happened to a friend in Chapala - installed a digital meter. No electricity - she went a dozen times to CFE to get the electricity turned back on - no electricity and no luck with CFE. Finally she had an electrician fix the problem.

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Hang onto your hats, folks. The final stages of the Reforma Energética were approved last night by the national Senate. It affects everyone who is hooked to the CFE system as well as everyone who uses gasoline, natural gas, or gas liquado. The Monday night Canal 11 news, normally fairly clear and sometimes more or less unbiased, was pure gobbledegook and disinformation. Some say the government subsidy will be removed from the CFE bill. Like I said, hang onto your hats, especially if your bill is in the high range.

And FYI, fracking for natural gas by foreign interests has been approved in Mexico. Read it and weep.

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Well simpsca my friend, I am sorry for your problem but glad someone as articulate as you will be taking them on.

As per fracking, you thought "don't drink the water" before... With companies pumping unreported chemicals into the aquifer, weep is right.

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Here's an article (in Spanish) about the government's promises about lowering the cost of electricity--and about removing the subsidy:

http://www.sinembargo.mx/21-07-2014/1063775

And re fracking: if you thought the ground was unstable before, watch for the number of earthquakes to rise. Oklahoma is a prime example.

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Guest bennie2

i bet they charge to put the electric back on if it shuts off. they must have several modivations for this scam. yes another corporate scam. (or corp-gov as there is little difference). reminds me of what MCI did years ago to millions of customers. but then again, i called the attorney generels office & then they gave me a contact @ the FCC. somehow i made $ by some weird mistake after all was said & done. then again they werent the only phone service.

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I am sorry but we have not had this problem at all. Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, someone in our neighborhood signed for us. We have now had this for five months and have had the lowest bills we have ever had. For the first time ever we have no DAC and we like paying monthly. Until they add the DAC we are stay with this. Oh, I should have said our bills are half what they used to be. Beats me. But we sure are not complaining,.

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There is another whole side to this story that many are not yet aware of. These new "smart" meters give off a lot of electrro-magnetic energy which can be quite hazardous to your health. Search

smart meters health hazards

here is but one selection:

http://emfsafetynetwork.org/smart-meters/smart-meter-health-complaints/

It's really better not to have these! I think I'll ask my landlord to put a cage around mine. It is absolutely outrageous that they can and do install these things without the prior consent of the homeowner or tenant! You might have various symptoms and not even know it is because of this "smart" meter.

Cuidate!!

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Guest bennie2

ezpz thankyou for the link, lots to read. i have had symptoms for several days. do these meters make a buzz sound? i dont hink the sound is from this building but in back.

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There is another whole side to this story that many are not yet aware of. These new "smart" meters give off a lot of electrro-magnetic energy which can be quite hazardous to your health. Search

smart meters health hazards

here is but one selection:

http://emfsafetynetwork.org/smart-meters/smart-meter-health-complaints/

It's really better not to have these! I think I'll ask my landlord to put a cage around mine. It is absolutely outrageous that they can and do install these things without the prior consent of the homeowner or tenant! You might have various symptoms and not even know it is because of this "smart" meter.

Cuidate!!

The current EMF hoax is very standard fare in some communitiies but never the less a hoax with 0 evidence supporting it except "puedo" science. Smart meters are 100% safe as are cell phones, blue tooth, WIFI and close proximity to high tensión power lines etc. I studied electricity and electronics my whole career and know what EMF is and does and does not.

http://www.skepdic.com/emf.html

http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/docs/ev_20140327_co01_en.pdf

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The current EMF hoax is very standard fare in some communitiies but never the less a hoax with 0 evidence supporting it except "puedo" science. Smart meters are 100% safe as are cell phones, blue tooth, WIFI and close proximity to high tensión power lines etc. I studied electricity and electronics my whole career and know what EMF is and does and does not.

http://www.skepdic.com/emf.html

http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/docs/ev_20140327_co01_en.pdf

Agreed. Based on a 38 year public health, toxicology, environmental health & chemistry background, including teaching electronics, the generic opposition to "EMF" radiation has almost no foundation in reality. The light we use to read a book is EMF. The electric wiring in our homes emits EMF continuously. Our computer screens emit light (EMF) that goes to your eyes to read as you read what is written here. EMF from our local FM stations and AM stations penetrate our bodies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. EMF from Mexican satellite TV (Sky), US satellite TV (Dish Network & DirecTV), and Canadian Shaw and Bell all irradiate our bodies every time we step outside. Fluorescent lights and incandescent lights - and those new white LED give off lots of EMF (which allows us to see things). The sun blasts massive amounts of EMF 24/7 ... so unless you live in a metal-mesh lined cave, you are exposed to EMF.

As we know from sunburns and skin cancer caused by exposure to too much sunlight, the type (frequency/wavelength) of EMF makes all the difference. (followed by length of exposure and proximity) High energy (high frequency/short wavelength) EMF like X-rays & UV from the sun, damage DNA - causing mutations of genes. Get both of your copies of a gene damaged => get cancer.

EMF energy broadcast by household electricity is simply too low to cause cancer: Compare a flashlight to the sun. You can shine a flashlight (lower-energy low-intensity EMF) on your skin for days, with no burns and no DNA damage. If you stand in direct sunlight (with lots of high-frequency high-energy EMF) for more than 30 minutes or so, you get DNA damage and more than that also causes a sunburn (unless you have nice brown skin - because the "brown" or "black" come from melanin - and lab tests show that if enough melanin is present - it safely absorbs all the harmful UV).

Saying someone gets harmed by EMF from your electric meter is like saying you get harmed by turning on the lights to read the newspaper...

Really, the false worries & very real--but-unnecessary anxiety created by people repeating non-factual false claims about EMF clearly causes much more cellular damage due to stress hormones (cortisol), overworking our adrenal glands, causing near continual "flight or fight" stress creates lots of nasty free-radicals => nasty oxidizers in our bodies - raising our cancer risks.

The false worries & very real--but-unnecessary anxiety created by people repeating non-factual false claims about EMF clearly causes much more damage to our health due to suppressing our immune systems caused by reading false claims - harming us with unnecessary stress.

This means that in very real terms, the people who keep repeating the false EMF myths are causing others much more physical damage to reader's and listener's health than household electricity or the new meters.

================

Real problematic sources of damaging EMF:

- The sun,

- The old high-power "bag" cell phones that had the battery and base-receiver in a bag you set on the car seat.

- Dental X-rays (very minor),

- Medical X-rays,

- Chest X-rays (significant),

- CT scans are the worst: CT scans dose us with 250 to 300 chest X-ray exposures per scan - where more than 3 CT scans per lifetime raise cancer risks by 2X.

- Particle accelerators, (used by scientists)

- Gamma rays/gamma particles from radioactive elements - like in our fired bricks, Coleman lantern mantles, and fireplace ash.

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If you travel they tell me with the new card system you cannot prepay your bill like I do, and you cannot pay it on line. I currently have a credit balance on both meters. That means if you are away when the bill is due your electricity will go off and everything in your fridge will spoil. I did just have my electrician here to change all important electrical devices like the fridge and water pump to the old meter and he is having an iron cage built for it. Even though I cancelled this card service and handed in the card I will bet that the electricity goes off sometime in Aug. for things that are wired to that meter. Don't know why they only changed one machine. My gardener said they did the same thing to him. He had it changed back to bi-monthly service and it took a month.

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  • 2 months later...

Is there a number to call when I have lost electric power?

071. Be prepared with your account #. They will ask you if it's just you or the whole sector. If it's just you or just your street they have up to 30 hours to fix it. If it's the whole sector they will fix it much faster. Since you probably won't know how much is affected if you say the whole sector, you might get it fixed more quickly. Of course you need a regular phone or a cell phone, not a wireless, to make the call. I had my electricity go out in Riberas twice last weekend. The first time it apparently was just my street and it took about 14 hours to get repaired. The next time, in Sunday night's storm, apparently lightening hit a transformer and it was repaired in about 1 1/2 hours in the pouring rain. The representative asked me where the transformer was. I had no idea. I don't know if they have anybody who speaks English. They will give you a work order number so you can check back to see what's happening.

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