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Bad Economy Leading Folks to Steal Electricity

by Peter Mychalcewycz on March 19, 2009 at 07:14 AM


The effects of a bad economy are often described in abstract terms by national and local media. With that in mind, we've come across a story in USA Today that paints a more concrete picture of what a severely weakened economy looks like, and the lengths to which some people are going to go to cope with it.

According to the story, an increasing number of desperate Americans have resorted to stealing electricity. Some run wires directly from the power line into their circuit breaker, while others try tampering with their meter to lower their monthly cost. This, as you can imagine, is an extremely dangerous task, and, according to USA Today, it's happening more and more often as people find themselves unable to pay their bills.

American Electric Power, a company that serves hard-hit states like Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, investigated 3,196 cases of electricity theft this past January and February. That is a 27-percent increase from last year.



PECO, a Philadelphia utilities provider terminated service to 14,000 customers in early 2008. They found that, of those customers, 30-percent were illegally using electricity by late 2008.

The economy is in bad shape on a grand scale, but let's try to look for other ways to save some money. Meanwhile how about we put the pliers down and leave the power-lines alone, hmm? [From: USA Today]


Related Links:
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Tags: crime, electricity, power, recession, stealing, theft

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