I almost got my electricity shut off a few months ago because of an account dispute. For the first few months of my lease the utilities was in my landlord's name. he would send me the bill and i'd send a check to the electric company.
Well, i transferred the account into my name, and in turn got a new account number, but i didn't know that. So the old account still had a balance on it that i never received a bill for. 5 months later i get a phone call from my landlord that she got a letter from the electric company that they were going to shut my power off in 2 days!!!!
Luckily they do electronic transfers and i had to make the payment right then and there. Thank god for technology or i would've had no power.
On a side note, i failed to pay my cable bill for 3 months and it took them that long to call me and tell me that they were gonna shut my service off. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif
me > utility/cable companies