Gas Company Report - Need Advise

[kcdad]

This is my first post and I believe I am up to speed on all the "Read this first" stuff so hopefully this post is in the right place and within the guidelines.

I am experiencing an issue with Nicor, a gas company in the Midwest.

I moved into my current home in March of '06. Before I moved I notified Nicor of the move and advised them to shut off the gas at my previous residence at the end of March.

They continued the gas and kept billing me for several more months racking up an additional $368 in charges.

I was lax in taking notes on who I talked to during the course of my battle with them over this account, and it remained on my credit report (TU) as a collection account for $368 until this month.

Now, in the interim I had a new Nicor account which was established for the new residence.

I have had zero problems with that account until today, when I checked my report and discovered that Nicor shows my account as 120 days past due and a balance of $468.

Given the bill I have in hand is only $66.83 and due on 4-16-09 this REALLY threw me for a loop.

So I called them and they advised that they "merged" the collection balance to my new account which gave me a new balance of $468 and because the old collection account is beyond 120 days, my new account would be listed as 120 days past due.

I'm not in a logical frame of mind because I simply cannot believe that this is legal but I wanted to check in here and see what you folks think, and what you think my recourse should be with this.

Now, instead of one account as collection but with some age and a current account I have a charged off account and a 120 past due account, dropping my score significantly.

Any thoughts or help would be appreciated.

Thanks for a great resource!

[someonesomewhere]

I'd take it up with your state's utility commission.

http://www.icc.illinois.gov/

[kcdad]

I have been at this for a bit now and thought I would just post my status and what I'm doing about it, in case it can help someone else here on the board at some point.

After my last post I sent a certified letter to the Gas company explaining their error and requiring an investigation and reply/fix within 30 days.

Not only did they not reply my letter, they sent a disconnection notice if I did not pay the balance due.

So, I contacted an attorney that specializes in credit repair (someone I know through a friend) and she agreed with me that this was ludicrous, and sent me a follow up letter to send to the gas company.

Basically the letter gives them another 15 days to fix before I proceed with notifying the FTC and escalating up the legal chain.

I'll post the response or lack thereof and how I get it resolved, again, in case this ever happens to anyone else here.

Thanks!

PS - Thanks someonesomewhere for the previous reply. Did not see it until now:-)