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Southern California Edison Toll-Free Numbers Do Not Work

Despite the fact that area codes have become ubiquitous, some businesses continue to refuse to accept incoming calls (to their Customer Service departments, mind you) on their published toll-free lines from area codes outside their service area. Case in point: my local utility provider in Laguna Beach, California -- Southern California Edison, the largest subsidiary of Edison International (NYSE: EIX).

For someone like me who uses an area code different from the ones in Southern California Edison's coverage area, I recently found out that I have no choice but to call the utility--which serves 11,000,000 people in southern California with electricity--from a telephone line that deploys a local area code. And, if you're one of the estimated 22 percent of households who had only cell phones during the last half of 2008 (that figure, by the way, comes from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released earlier this month), and you're a mobile worker like I am, chances are becoming greater that your cell's area code might be different from the area code in which you reside.

All of this of course would be avoidable if Southern California Edison, and others like them, did one of two things:

1. Printed local--in addition to toll-free--numbers on their statements, which they do not; or
2. Wake up and smell the coffee that their electricity allows people to brew in the first place, and open the system to accept calls from all area codes (trust me, it's not like people in other states are sitting around thinking up ways to stick it to Southern California Edison, with calling their toll-free line in an attempt to increase the company's telephone bill being chief among them!).

Of the 15 or so different telephone numbers listed on Southern California Edison billing statements, all are toll-free, including those dedicated exclusively to the company's Cambodian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Spanish speaking customers.

My hope is that enough people say something about this to Southern California Edison and they change their approach to be inclusive of all of their customers, despite which area code they may be calling in from.