Seattle City Light. They keep my lights on, so I don't really have any problem. Ah well ...there was a night last summer where there was a complete outage. It was one of those annoying ones where It only affects a small area - in my case it was one side of a block. I've dealt with this while living back east and luckily when it happened then it was summer. Even went outside and chatted with neighbor in a nearby apartment dealing with it. When it happens in the summer, at least you can go outside and do stuff. The night this happened we were expecting guests and were cooking. This of course had to be cancelled. So, for about 6 hours with some candles, it went on, finally being restored at about 9pm or so. The information via calling the update line was pretty accurate so that is appreciated and checking the outage map was too. So Seattle City Light. Source of our everyday power. You're alright, except for powering off our party. read more

Thank you for restoring power to our house after the Nov 2024 bomb cyclone in a reasonable time considering how many homes have lost power in the north Seattle area. I was impressed . I do hope that others will read this and help reduce power losses by inspecting their trees before storm season. A thankful neighbor in Maple Leaf Seattle read more

Worst electric company ever! I know they are busy but their estimations don't mean anything and give a false sense of progress being made. It is also hard to prepare for the outage like if I need to get a hotel or something. They usually say a few hours but it takes days. I have lived in other cities for 20 years where the wait time was no longer than 3 hours. One occurrence my powerline was actually on fire in my back yard and they fixed it in 3 hours. But a tree branch that touches a line and they can't get it fixed for 3 days?!? Also commented on their FB group and got berated by the line worker's wives like their husbands are saints or war vets. These goons can make $400k+ a year. They are holding Seattle hostage with these costs. What can Seattle do? Say no to budget increases (they'll strike)? Move to some other company (non-existent)? read more

The most incompetent City department ever. The workers and linemen are all IBEW union members so they think they are untouchable GODS. Pray that you do not have to deal with the incompetence of this city department. Slow service time and arbitrary judgements on when they can come out and do a service appointment Its almost like they feel like they are doing you a favor by coming to your property and giving you power. read more

Time to get involved SCL... You're tone deaf if you aren't paying attention or taking action to what's transpired on your property the last few years. Would be great to see some effort to restore the Interurban which has been severely damaged by the recent encampments. Show the city & your neighbors that you care and are not putting your head in the sand! read more

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I've lived in Lake Forest Park for over 20 years and without exception when there is a number of power outages due to storms or inclement weather we're always without power for at least 24 hours. The most frustrating part is watching literally every other outage in Seattle restored before our neighborhood is addressed including single home outages. I wish I could switch to the adjacent county's utility but we're stuck with this trash company. They suck. read more

Omg. Talk about above and beyond customer service. I just had the most pleasant utility conversation of my life. Big thanks!

I was a bit nervous to move to Seattle from another state as I seen all these negative reviews and billing is done bi-monthly so I was imagining a disastrous bill to look forward to in the beginning months in addition to my other moving costs. I've had nothing but a great experience so far! Customer service was direct and informative on starting up and their website is easy to set up an account and make payments. Thanks for one less stress in my day to day! :) read more

Slowest service time. No response. We as humans need to work together. I get being busy, but months of no response is a tad overbearing.

As a contractor, this is the hands-down worst utility to work with in Puget Sound. Water? Sewer jurisdictions? PSE gas? PSE electrical? not perfect, but, generally fine to work with. And the linemen are great, when they are there. It's the office, the engineers, the billing staff. Unresponsive, disorganized, capricious; I don't know what they do in their home offices, but it doesn't have anything to do with providing electricity service to Puget Sound customers. SCL delays to hook up service stretch from weeks to months to even years. Their customer service is abysmal, when it exists. On one project, it took 17 months to get an existing, paid for, permitted line moved 10 feet to a new strike. They had three different project engineers rotate through the organization on that one project. Was this some far-flung community or fly-by-night operator? No, it's our monopoly local electrical utility, working on Phinney Ridge. Their engineers spell out work, change it in the field, and change it again after it's installed. All at contractor or homeowner expense, and while delaying projects for months. This utility doesn't give a fiddler's fart about it's customers, partners or the people building this city. I am venting, yes, but it's not an opinion unique to me; this is the common agreement among builders and electricians I associate with in this region. It should be disbanded, reorganized, and put under some other authority than the City of Seattle. read more

I am amazed and so grateful. I got someone ( name withheld for privacy) who really knew how to break down my bill and was so polite. Whew, thnak you. read more

My neighbor's tree damaged my service line. I called City Light in the morning and a crew showed up shortly after. They found the fault, patched it, cleared a bunch of branches, and verified my service was restored. They also requested a tree trimming crew, do to a proper job, but cautioned me that there's a huge backlog. Totally expected, given our recent weather. My few contacts with City Light have always been very positive. Especially their service crews. read more

So unprofessional,rude... I got a bill for $988 and next time I got -$14. Refund will take around 4 month. They are so nasty to me when I called them. I am not proud of this company to be here in Seattle. read more

ZERO CUSTOMER SERVICE IF THEY EVEN BOTHER TO ANSWER THE PHONE. Every time i call its "leave a message and we will get back to you within 48 hours". Apparently 48 hours to them is different from the rest of the world. They never call back. Its been 3.5 months, 6 phone calls, hours upon hours on hold. Actually even talked to 2 different people. Obviously they didn't help cuz here we are. Seattle City Light is HORRIBLE. MUCH LIKE OUR GOVERNMENT, THEY PROVIDE LIP SERVICE AND NOT MUCH OF ANYTHING ELSE. Would give 0 stars if i could. read more

We, the taxpayers own it and Seattle City Light has some of the cheapest and THE greenest energy in the USA. I have never had an issue getting to someone via phone and they move quickly to address stuff. What's not to like?! read more

Screw this company. They waited an entire YEAR to bill me despite me calling in like four times to try and resolve my bill. Now I am on a hugely expensive payment plan. Oh - and god help if you have to call in. You are guaranteed to spend at LEAST 45 minutes on the phone because Seattle City Light doesn't give two shits about their customers. read more

The electric prices aren't bad but the billing is appalling. Keep an eye on your bills as you may not receive one and get stuck with a bill after months of use. Their systems do not register transfers of address and they do not take credit for their mistakes. I work in property management and can say that I've dealt with SCL on many occasions. The public should not have to put up with such garbage. read more

Every time you call it's literally 20-30 minutes wait. It could be anytime of the day trust me I've tried morning, mid-morning, noon, afternoon and evening. Can you really call it long delays when it's your average delay? Then you get to talk to an apathetic highschool dropout CS rep. These people send final bills for home sales and transfers every single day and my cs agent couldn't tell me where to send the bill. Finally you can't schedule them to close an account on the closing date over the phone, but somehow there is a form online to do it! The agent said they have to check the records for the transfer, but would also accept me telling them I gave up the keys??? Why is the later acceptable? If you are going to be a hard ass about checking the record transfer then you better actually check it. read more

Miserable. They just put an additional 2500 dollars on my house electric bill, saying it was for an apartment I lived at in 2018 for a few months. I moved out of this place years ago, AND electricity was included in the rent I paid. As a contractor, I've had to deal with their horrible service on the construction end for decades. Being forced to tear up work already inspected and passed, waiting on linework for nearly a year, calling every week for that year and being told each time "for sure this week". I fondly remember that nitwit Jorge Carrasco, seems like City Light just got worse after he was forced to resign after he personally gave away 20 tons of copper wire in some scam. Then our city paid him another 100,000 to scrub his online presence, so he could get another high paid job. read more

SCL deserves negative stars for their incessant excuse-making regarding over billing, non-billing, then overbilling again. I had a zero balance for 15 months, which i was given to understand was due to earlier overbilling. Then a $1,500 bill that they demand be paid in half the time they took to resume sending bills. The people making the decisions there feel NO accountability toward the customer or their own staff. They're shitty managers and shittier people. F off Seattle City Light. read more

If i can give negative stars I totally would. I logged in with my password wrong maybe a couple times and they locked my account up. I have to call in everytime and wait on the line forever to get a representative to respond to my call. It's been at least 4 times already. Jesus can you just??? fix your security shit and have people resetting their password on their own if you tryna waste people's life like that or hire more employees to take people's calls. This is so inconvenient. read more

I owned my place in Seattle and paid my bills on time for 10 years with these guys. I've recently sold my place and have been waiting nearly 2 months for them to send me a final bill. I've called 4 times and emailed twice and get nothing but excuses that "we're really busy". Meanwhile my mortgage company is holding $700 to cover any final bills and won't release my money until Seattle City Lights sends the final bill. Pathetic customer service read more

Wind knocked out my parents' power. Was worried because they are in their 80s and 90s. Estimate for restoration was up to 3.5 hours. Power was back on within the hour! So appreciate the hard work by so many folks at City Light! read more

Horrible customer service! We got so sick of having to deal with SCL, we converted to solar. We thought the service was bad before, it only got worse!! Our system would have been up and running 12/28/17, but thanks to SCL, we got our last (of three) meters installed last week 3/29/18! Almost four months to get two additional meters installed! The woman I was dealing with (as well as our rep at Artisan Electric) did nothing, She would say she would talk other departments on and on and on... all without a return call. EVER! Finally got the name of one of her superiors and he handled the whole debacle with grace and aplomb. Had the meter installed with a week of talking to him. We will be so happy to be taking annual checks from SCL from now on vs. us giving them any more of our hard earned dollars! If you must deal with Seattle City Light, proceed with caution and pack your patience! read more

I've moved several times with my account and every single time they mess it up. Every time they do this, I have to call and usually wait around 30 minutes on hold before speaking with a representative. The representatives are actually good, but they weren't the only provider in the area they would not be in business. read more

This is the worst pud I've ever had to deal with. They have been over charging me for a year and a half. I had a "ticket" out to correct the issue which they kept telling me I was inline...because they are doing this to tons of Seattle people. I told them I would be moving and I wanted this settled and she said they would refund me even if it was after I moved. I've now moved and guess what? They closed my ticket. So they feel they don't owe me a refund for gouging me since December 2016. Why isn't the attorney general stepping in to fix what they are doing? It's criminal read more

Terrible Customer Service From Debbie from the Credit department! I called in the name of my parents who are don't speak English and want me to resolve their issue. I got mailed a $29000 bill all at once. We never even got billed during the years which was already odd. So we called them multiple times to get this straighten out. They kept insisting that it was the right bill but how can a normal family be spending $3000 a month on electricity. Finally my old parents gave up and decided they're just pay the $29000 even though I keep telling them this had to be wrong. But they made the decision so I called the Credit department and Debbie answers the phone with a rude tone. I didn't think much of it and I told her Regina (a better representative), left a voicemail to call her back and then Debbie said No This is Debbie. Then she asked me my name and I told her my name. "This she was like where are your parents". EXCUSE ME, I told her I was 20 and I am an adult. Then I told her the reason I was calling and she started raising her voice and continued to say "I'm obviously talking to a child so I need an adult" in a rude attitude and was so loud. I was extremely frustrated that she was saying that so I said you are extremely rude I need to talk to your supervisor and she would NOT connect me and kept asking for my name even though I told her multiple times. She kept repeating I need to talk to an adult in a loud and rude tone. She extremely impatient and extremely rude to me. So I told her I was going to file a complaint on her and hung up. Then minutes later Regina actually called me and she was much nicer. We made our agreement on the account then I asked to talk to their supervisor where he said he would have a talk with her. They probably didn't do anything about it but Debbie needs to go. She had such an attitude. read more

UPDATE: Seattle City Light is still trash. This time we moved into a new place in December 2017. We got our first bill and it was outrageous. We called them and they said they had mischarged and would come out for a meter reading and send out a new bill. Okay sure. But they didn't send out the bill for 11 MONTHS! I went into my online profile and saw a balance of $1090. I called them and asked what was up and they told me I could pay it back for the next 11 months at $100/month. That bill is insanely high. Every other apartment we have lived in has been 30 dollars a month for electric and this is like 230% higher of a bill. I asked them to send me an itemized bill that shows my usage and the charges and they refused. I am now going through the Mayors office with their complaint investigators for this problem. This is totally untrustworthy. We are not living at the apartment at the moment and they told me the fridge alone (the only thing plugged in, no heat, no lights, nothing else) is using 8-10kw of power per day at about $40-$50 per month. Something is wrong and I'm going to get to the bottom of it. Moved into a place last August (2016), paid my bills (when they would finally bill me-- took about 5 months), finally showed up on my online account months later and I luckily checked and saw before I got sent to collections. Been in a new apartment since March 2017, filled out the change of address form (they even called me to confirm my information) and have yet to bill us for over 8 months. Now we are moving again (it's been a rough year lol) at the end of this month (November 2017) and I'll do another change form, but I guess we'll see if I ever get any sort of bill from them. If I ever get sent to collections or charged late fees I'm going to be pissed. We've never even received a paper bill. Also, it'd be nice to know how much energy we are using, if we should conserve/should be saving, how much we are indebted, etc. for many obvious reasons. But looking at previous reviews, it looks like they are extremely disorganized as evident in my case as well, and to be frank I don't wish to deal with their horrible customer service. Get it together. Hate dealing with these monopolized companies. read more

Their customer service agents are rude and unprofessional. They know nothing about their job and how to help customer. I had submitted online transfer application on 17th March but my account was not closed till 19th April. And I came to know this when I had received new bill for my old apartment. I called the customer service to know why my account was not closed. She was so rude and inattentive. I had to repeat myself so many times that at one point, I felt like it's not worth to explain her. The problem is still unresolved. read more

They can't provide consistent service. I keep getting bills for amounts based on estimated usage data which is way off from our average usage. I had to call in and provide the readings last time. That should be worth some sort of a discount. read more

Very professional. Stacked with people who 1) know what they're doing, 2) care about what they're doing, and 3) care about whom they serve. Most things could be done online but I sometimes like coming here. read more

Seattle City Light - Northgate branch. - Electricity Suppliers Near Me - Seattle, Washington

These guys are disorganized assholes. Who's running this POS? My roommate and I moved into this place in April. After signing up, we received a letter in the mail saying our first bill would arrive in 2 months with all of our account information on it. 4 months later....nothing. No doubt the bill is just piling up. We have no idea what the rates are, whether or not we need to conserve energy, nothing. We don't even have an account number to check anything yet. Finally I decide to be proactive and call them. I waited for an hour on hold only to talk with some rude prick who said I couldn't talk to them about the account since only my roommate's name is on it. "That's okay," I said, "I'm just calling to ask about how long the first bill usually takes to go out. It's been 4 months, twice as long as you guys indicated." The guy gave me an attitude and repeated to me that only the name on the account could talk to him about it. "I'm not even asking about the account, this is a general question. I'm not asking for credit cards or social security numbers, I'm just asking about billing." The guy continues giving me an attitude and implies that something else is holding up the billing process. Bullshit. I ask him to just put a general note in the system to send out the damn bill but he refuses and again told me only my roommate can do that. I told him "Thanks for nothing." and hung up. These guys have a monopoly on Seattle's power and they're completely inept as far as billing and customer service goes. It's what happens when there's no competition in a market. I shouldn't be surprised. No doubt these guys will try to slap us with late fees or something when they've gone out of their way to make this process senselessly difficult. Fucking scumbags. read more

If I could give 0 stars I would. As a college student already struggling to pay bills, I have been completely shocked at SCL's complete lack of respect and care for their customers. We moved into our apartment in October and were told that our electric would be billed every 2 months and added to our rent portfolio. For the past 9 months, we have not received a single bill or phone call from them to tell us we were overdue on bills or had any to begin with but it was a complete SHOCK when we received a bill one day for nearly $600 with 15 days to pay every cent of it. Upon calling and sitting on hold for an hour, they admitted that it was a fault on their end for not putting out information in their system on time and therefor; our bill was an accumulation of LATE CHARGES that they would not waive and told us we still needed to cover them immediately. Their reps are extremely rude over the phone and offer no help at all. This truly is a company that cares all about their money and none about their customers. Absolutely disappointing and one of the top reasons we will never live anywhere using SCL again. read more

Only writing this review because until last month I had OK service. Little or no outages, and clockwork electronic bills. Not last time however. Now in two 2-months periods I received quite unusual bills: the first one way lower, than usual, and the second way higher (the later triggered overpay warning, which made me look into that). Assuming no malice, they just accidentally misread the counter the first time. It is a problem, because every household gets an allotment of electricity at cheaper tariff (50% off), and I don't think the lower bill went past it. The later bill then got that unaccounted electricity with more expensive tariff, as it was definitely after the boundary. I am going to call them today, hopefully they fix the bills. If not, I guess I'll have to lower the rating further, because it is clearly a mistake on their side (the bills diff more than by 3x). IMPORTANT: if you noticed the same problem, at the very least leave a comment here. That way we, customers, will be able to see if this was not an honest mistake, but intentional widespread fraud. read more

So Unprofessional! So dictatorial! I understand this is a government agent and not-by-your-choice electricity provider, but could you please at least make some sense when you billing?! I called the customer service about the over charge during April, which charged 4 times higher than winter season (this is ridiculous because I lived in an one-bedroom with my wife and we both have full time job, so no body at home during the day. Besides, we used heater in the winter season!). And customer service looked through my bill history and told me that I was under charged the whole time. After I explained that all my neighbors got the same charge rate, he changed his tone and said he just arranged someone to check my meter, and will call me back within two weeks to further explain everything to me. And that was like 2 months ago. read more

Horrible customer service, I've been on the phone with them several times and they do not respond. Email is even worse. Only way you can get a hold If anyone is to call and say that you need to pay an overdue bill. Would not recommend this company to anyone. It's a Shame these companies even exist, I believe they run on a monopoly. read more

Thieves. They called my business telling me I had "27 minutes" before cutting off power. They acknowledged that I had sent payment ON TIME, and cashed those checks (over $8000.00!). Then they couldn't find the correct invoice # (even though it was mailed with the checks as it is every month), so they cut a reimbursement for the full amount telling me they need the invoice #. Rather then calling me a few days ago, they call me today saying "27 minutes". Who the hell runs Seattle City Light???? read more

The reps were not rude, but balked at removing a small late fee even with a death in the family, and they are incredibly siloed--one can only take payments but not take off a fee. Another one can tell you how to do a recurring payment online but can't actually help you set it up on the phone. Get to 2019, please! read more

They tout their ability to keep power going... but I think that's in the rich neighborhoods. Our power goes out EVERY SINGLE TIME the weather sneezes. The last place I lived the power never went out. They should do a case study. I'm going to have to buy a backup generator because this is getting ridiculous. read more

Thank you!!! What a blessing to have my power restored! And the map was fabulous....amazing detail! I am so happy with your service! And I have lived here in this house for 44 years!!! read more