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One of the things that bothers me about public EV charging is the way most companies are set up as a pre-pay system, whereby you ‘load’ your account with funds prior to charging. This means that the company is always in possession of your money for a service they have not yet provided. The best solution I’ve found was to use one provider (ChargePoint) who has reciprocal agreements with virtually every other charging provider around here (including BC Hydro) so I only have to top up one account vs. having balances with many.
Enter BCHydro. This morning I’ve received three emails from them because apparently I have an outstanding negative balance of $1.86. (This would have been because a charging session went over the available balance on my account). I went to the app, as instructed, to pay the balance but the minimum amount they will let me top up my account with is $10.
Sure, I could just pay it, and leave the $8.14 in there in perpetuity, but fuck that! Why should they get to hang onto that money?
I’ve emailed them asking them to provide another way for me to pay the outstanding balance. We’ll see how that goes…