The management and employees of URECC work every day to serve our members the best we possibly can. This means giving you the best service possible, the most reliable electricity possible for rural areas, and lowering your monthly bill any way possible. With the steadily increasing costs of buying electricity, budgets have been tightened to the extreme, efficiency is a must, and we are always looking to cut any unnecessary costs in daily operations in the field and in the business offices.

 

  One of those costs we have been watching is the fees paid by URECC for credit and debit card transactions. There is a fee charged for every single credit card, debit card, and E-check payment processed. This is a monthly expense that you pay your share of as a member and an owner of URECC.

 

   URECC currently has over 34,000 members that pay their bills each month. About half of those members pay by credit or debit card. URECC (you, as a member/owner) pays a fee for each one of those transactions. The other half of the 34,000 members pay by cash, check, or bank draft. These members are saving money personally and saving the co-op expenses on transaction fees.

 

   URECC has a duty to be fair to each and every member of the cooperative. Currently, the portion of URECC membership that is using forms of payment that do not cost the cooperative fees for transactions are still having to pay a portion of the monthly expense for the payment transaction charges. This is a cooperative expense that is divided among all the members.

 

  With fairness to ALL URECC members in mind, URECC will be providing options for members to choose in paying their monthly bills, even offering an additional way to pay without a fee to the member. Payment options are:

 

1. Bank Draft – no fees to the member; members must fill out the bank draft form. The form is found online, in the SmartHub App, or available in the URECC lobby.

2. “Pay Now”  (Coming January 4th) – no fees to the member; members may click on the “Pay Now” button on the website and pay by electronic check.

3. Cash/Paper Check – no fees to the member.

 

  If a member does wish to continue to pay by credit or debit card, or by e-check, they may certainly do so. To be fair to all members the fee will be the responsibility of the member making the payment.

 

 An additional expense that we monitor closely is bad debts, and corresponding deposits on file to cover the bad debts. If a member moves from URECC service and does not pay their final bill, the $230 deposit they paid initially is not covering their bill on many occasions. The balance of these unpaid bad debts are paid by the existing members. To avoid URECC members from having to cover these bad debts, the deposits for NEW SERVICE and DELINQUENT ACCOUNTS will be increased from $230 to $300. (This does not include current, active accounts unless they are delinquent.)

 

   Thank you for your understanding as we work to cut expenses for our URECC members and keep your rates for electricity as low as we possibly can.