Survey: Long Island Power Authority Is The Worst Utility In America

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- There are 126 major utility companies in the United States and the Long Island Power Authority is the worst of the bunch.

LIPA finished dead last in the JD Power & Associates customer satisfaction survey.

Customers aren't surprised.

1010 WINS' Holli Haerr reports

"They're always promising cuts in the cost and they never deliver or they tell you they're going to send you a refund check and you don't get a refund check and then they raise the rates and they don't even give you a reason why," Anna Marie Geis, of Bay Shore, told 1010 WINS.

LIPA scored 552 out of 1,000 in the survey, a 30 point drop from the utility's results last year.

It appears utilities failed to meet expectations when it came to responding to major storms last year, like Irene.

The survey found satisfaction with power quality and reliability dropped 13 points nationally.

Geis said she spent five days in the dark after Tropical Storm Irene.

"I felt that LIPA should've been able to do a better job to accommodate their services being that their rates are constantly going up," Geis said. "They weren't too customer-friendly. They always said they knew what was going on and that they were working as fast as they could and they knew about what was going on but that's all they would say, they wouldn't give you any information."

Other customers said they are happy with LIPA.

"I thought they were very good," one customer told 1010 WINS' Holly Haerr. "They're always there, when we call them they come right away."

The survey interviewed more than 100,000 residential electric customers nationally between July 2011 and May 2012.

LIPA issued a statement saying it is disappointed with the results but that the company has taken a number of steps in the past year to benefit customers.

"LIPA achieved a number of accomplishments for our customers this year, including three bill reductions, top ranking reliability in the state, national recognition for our solar and efficiency programs, and successfully moving to a new business model which will provide cost savings opportunities as well as switching to PSEG  as our new service provider in 2014 who comes with proven success in reliability and customer satisfaction," the statement said.