We recently moved to Germany with the military. Our account was closed with Progress Energy as of April 1. In June we received a letter from a collection agency. We called to notify the agency of our location and the fact that we had never received a bill. They would not take a phone statement. On July 11, we received another letter from the collectors, stating that they were proceeding with action against us. This was sent to us before the 30 days allotted for our response. We contacted the creditors again, and they were unwilling to help us.

I then contacted Progress Energy directly. I went through two customer service reps and a supervisor. The second gentleman ... told me, "All we can do is put it in the box, ma'am. We can't guarantee delivery. We cannot help you." I asked for his supervisor. ... She said it had been sent to collections, and there was nothing they could do to help me. Mind you, we had not received a bill and are overseas. I asked for ... [her] supervisor. She said "she is in a meeting and there is no one here to speak with you." I was very persistent asking for management. She put me on hold and then hung up on me.

I called back and spoke with Alex, then Sean. These gentlemen were very helpful in expediting the call to management directly. Aletha [the supervisor] was also very considerate and helpful. There was no problem when it came to paying the bill. We just wanted it out of collections' hands. I would like to applaud Alex, Sean and Aletha for the team effort they provided. Aletha settled the issue in minutes and said they could in fact help me from their side.

Please let the public know: ... Be persistent and stand up for yourself. It does make a difference.

Jennie Donaldson

Summersville, W.Va.

Microsoft site addresses issue

Re the Vista Word 2007 issue [Stump the Geeks, "Word 2007 isn't widely used yet," Business July 16]: You failed to mention that Microsoft has a patch on its Web site to add a feature for Word 2007 to save document in PDF format.

Jim Gregson

Morehead City

Delivery fee added for bottled water

Yesterday I received a statement from the national company where we purchase our bottled water. I noticed there was an additional fee of $2.74 and in the description it said "energy surcharge." I called the company and questioned it and after much hemming and hawing, I was told that this charge was being added to help defray the rising cost of fuel for their delivery vehicles. (I actually ended up asking them this after the customer service person became very flustered.)

I was also told that this was "mandated by the federal government for all businesses."

Oh, really?

I told the company I would not pay it and would cancel my service. An employee then countered by telling me the company would discount the cost of my water cooler by $5 per month. Needless to say, I will probably not do business with this company in the future.

People should check their bills carefully to look for added surcharges like this with misleading descriptions. With what's going on with the economy, I know everyone has to be careful with money, but I found this to be underhanded and unprofessional. I wonder if Gov. Mike Easley uses the same company and gave them this idea?

Carla W. Sanford

Raleigh

Another way to use floppy disks

Regarding the Stump the Geeks column ("Virtual secretary is on the fritz," Business, July 2): In your answer to the person in Denver that seemed to have a bunch of 5.25" floppy disks he or she was trying to read onto another type of media, there was one base you didn't cover. If the person has a desktop PC, it might be worth their while to pick up a used 5.25" drive from eBay or some other vendor and install it in the PC. They are not that difficult to install. If the person doesn't know that much about PCs, I am sure Best Buy, Circuit City or some computer outfit would be glad to do it for them.

Mike Zumhagen

Raleigh