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Nstar
Rating Details »
Category: Home Services
Neighborhood: Back Bay800 Boylston St Ste 16
(between Fairfield St & Gloucester St)
Boston, MA 02199
(617) 424-2000
- Nearest Transit:
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Copley (Green)
Back Bay (Orange)
12 reviews for Nstar
Most obnoxious, unhelpful customer service ever.
My hot water heater blew... took them 15 minutes to get there to turn the gas off. NStar advised me they'd be there within 30 minutes when it was time to turn it back on.
In the Nstar world, 30 minutes = 3 days. Thanks for nothing.
oh, and when they were messing around @ my furnace, they broke an important switch off. I learned about this when my heat wouldn't come on in October. Cost me $150 to get their idiocy fixed so I could have heat.
Nstar ended up giving me the runaround for another day and told me because of the holiday weekend, I'd have to go three more days without electricity. The representative I talked to told me there's NO way someone would come out before the end of the work day.
I ended up calling the department of public utilities to complain. The person I talked to called Nstar personally when she heard what happened, got them to send someone out immediately and the power was turned back on two hours later.
Nstar. Sucks.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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9/3/2009
Just moved into a new place in Allston with 5 people and the DAY AFTER move in day, Nstar decides to… Read more »
I am in the middle of getting ready to move and just spent 1 hour (timed it) going through the website trying to transfer my service. Everything I selected brought me to a log in screen again, but naturally not my online log in, the account number, zip code and my email address log in. Somehow I eventually was brought to the "enter your new address" screen and after filling in everything, I was brought back to the same thing. I called and was put on hold until I just gave up a minute ago.
You know what I did when Comcast was overpriced and awful at everything? I switched to Directv. You know what I can do as a result of Nstar being this terrible? Nothing.
Fuck you Nstar. Fuck. You.
It wasn't cheap. It wasn't anything extroadinarily special at all. But it did what I needed it to: provided me electricity, gas, etc. But I have to say I preferred their elec. services over the gas ones since I always seemed to have a minor heart attack a lot more often when looking at my gas bills during winter heating periods, than when I was in an apt running on elec anyway!
They were really conveniently easy to switch/update info on when I was moving from Somerville to Boston. They were even easy to set a cancellation date and discuss final payment options with when I moved overseas. They were really easy to pay bills for with their online system and email notifications. I've never had my elec/gas cut off with them whether it was for weather or late payment purposes. They didn't make me feel like a criminal if I ever forgot to pay my bill on time (which I usually didn't thanks to the convenience of the online bill pay). Unlike other companies like T-Mobile or Comcast, when I moved overseas and wanted to pay my last bill, their website was able to handle me still making the payment from here instead of stupidly freaking out and making me call long-distance and be on hold for a million hours like my other service companies.
Like I said, they were nothing special and people I knew as well as myself had our fair share of headaches with them. And it looks like I was supremely lucky compared to the number of people reviewing here who obviously had much worse luck/experiences than I did! But compared to the pain in my ass that was T Mobile and the hellishly moronic way of handling things I had to deal with with Comcast, I always found relief when out of my 'services' list it was NStar I had to deal with instead.
Nstar is fine for the most part. I pay, they give me power.
I'm just sick of the mass mailings they do. Can't they just screen in advance to find if you're a renter or owner and not send you mass mailings about changing your heater when you don't even own the damn place.
Also, why does every single company have my address one way, but NStar won't recognize it. So I have to piggyback on my neighbor-landlord's address, which causes problems whenever I try to register anything with Cambridge's archaic system.
Screw you NStar, for that.
Nstar is horrible, plain and simple. Their customer service is rude, it takes for ever to speak with someone on the phone when you call, and they are the only choice for many neighborhoods. The city or government needs to step in and regulate this companies actions.
The worst part about NSTAR is that they are my only choice. And I hate them.
Last autumn we were on vacation in China and then San Francisco, and when we got to San Francisco our pet-sitter called to tell us that our power was out and there was a note from NSTAR. I had been paying the bills, but apparently I didn't pay enough the last time I had paid the bill. They sent us a notice saying they were going to shut off our service in 72 hours, but it was while we were in China.
We called them on a Friday afternoon, and they said they would not turn it back on until Monday morning. We told them that we needed it back on promptly, as we have a pet iguana who needed her heat lamp on.
They told us to try back on Saturday morning, because they had morning office hours. However, each time I called it gave me a message saying: "If you are trying to get your power turned on, our office hours are Monday-Friday 9-5 and Saturdays 9-1." I thought it was a little fishy, because I was calling at 11 AM...so I called from another phone and was able to get someone on the phone right away. SLEAZY.
They said they'd try to get our power turned on Saturday afternoon. However, when we returned to our home around 11:30 PM on Sunday, our house was pitch black. They didn't turn it back on until Monday.
I think they have bad business practices. Trying to block a customer in need from reaching a customer service representative? Despicable. And the mistake was THEIR error.
I also think they try to trick people into being unable to pay their bill. I forgot to pay my bill recently, and I got a letter on 10/11 (a Saturday) saying that I needed to pay my bill by 10/13 (Columbus Day) or my power will be shut off on 10/14. They said I needed to call the credit department to pay the bill, but the credit department is closed on the weekend and was closed on the holiday too. I paid it automatically on 10/12 but it takes a few days to post the payment, so I had to spend some time on the phone with an NSTAR rep to make sure they didn't shut off my power. I didn't think it was very fair that they gave us a 72 hour shut-off notice on a holiday weekend when there was no feasible way for me to pay it on time.
Plus, their online bill pay is terrible, which is why I forgot to pay my bill.
In conclusion, NSTAR should be called NSUCK because they seriously SUCK, but there's no other option to receive power.
oh my god
This a review of the truck they just parked outside my window, it is so loud, it woke me up and now I can't sleep, no one in fact is sleeping within a 2 mile radius seriously this thing is so loud. I know because I checked.
It's louder than a mountain being slowly ripped in half, I yelled "stop, do it tomorrow" out my window but my voice was such as a turtle burping in Argentina compared to this thing. It has a light that is blinking into my window on and off repeatedly. It's like a rave but instead of music a truck which is SITTING UPON MY FACE!!
If I hated someone in the world I would hire nstar to go do whatever they are doing right now outside their window at 2am and even if they killed my extended family we would be even.
They turned it off and then on why would they do that? It was a concussive shock wave of auditory death. Sleep is now an elusive butterfly on the other side of time, a desert oasis to which I stretch my hand but die instead.
I tried to smother myself with a pillow but a little oxygen was getting through and I could still hear it. It just started to back up, oh my god it could not get more obnoxious if they dragged me out and skinned me alive.
I effing hate you, NStar.
For some reason the power grids (or whatever they're called) in our neighborhood (Egleston Square) and one other (near Forest Hills) are the only ones in Jamaica Plain that haven't been updated for the massive amount of energy usage that modern times dictate. I don't know why this hasn't happened yet. (Could it be that they're also the two neighborhoods in JP with the largest minority populations? Possibly. Probably.) As a result of their unwillingness to update their system, every summer the power repeatedly goes out for hours upon hours at a time because everyone's running their air conditioners. Sometimes they will mail us a note in advance, letting us know that they'll have the power off for three or four hours so they can "work on the system"; usually this stretches into a 12-18 hour period and there's no noticeable improvement or result of all this work. Sometimes the power just randomly goes off without warning, and it takes NStar all day to get out and turn the power back on already.
The electricity has gone out for long stretches of time about twenty times in the year and a half that I've lived in this part of town. If this happened in other parts of JP, like off of Centre Street or in Moss Hill (read: where all the rich, white people live), there would be mass hysteria and outrage. But I guess since it's mostly just the poor and/or minority populations who are losing refrigerators full of food in 95-degree heat, that's acceptable to them. Whatever. I freaking HATE NStar and I don't know how they keep getting away with this. They really need to pay me back for all that food, plus the 3x100 packs of GLIMMA candles from Ikea I've had to equip myself with for the two summers I've lived in this 'hood.
As of today (December 7th) NStar still hasn't shown up. I was waiting until 5:30 and my mother waited until 11 PM. What a sorry excuse for a company.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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12/5/2008
How the heck did they get an overall 2 star rating? I am sitting in my car at the moment freezing to… Read more »
NStar messed up BIG time for about a 6 month period. Our apartment building is powered by Nstar and during this random 6 month period the power in the building (and half the block for that matter) went out at the very least once a week, often times two or three times a week. And then when I call to complain and refuse to pay for the whole bill they threaten to cut off my electricity. It's really a garbage company with garbage service.
well, you don't have too many choices for utilities, but NSTAR is good...unless they're on strike!
