As a single mother, I always refer to my online portal accounts to manage my household responsibilities and pay my bills—I do not rely on snail mail. The first step to paying any bill is knowing how much you actually owe. For over a month, I repeatedly logged into my online utility portal, and the screen consistently showed a clear balance of zero dollars.

 

Then, completely unexpectedly, our power was shut off.

 

When I called Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) to find out why my family was suddenly sitting in the dark, they told me we were disconnected for non-payment. They claimed I didn't owe zero dollars—I owed $1,009. When I tried to explain what the digital portal was showing me, the supervisor actually laughed at me. He shut down the conversation, dismissed the issue, and insisted there was absolutely no way possible for their system to automatically link existing customers to their new addresses during a move, claiming it is entirely up to the customer to figure it out.

 

Well, sir, that is factually incorrect. Having spent 7 years in digital infrastructure management and design, I know for a fact that it is entirely possible. The technology exists, and your refusal to implement it is actively harming our community.

 

The Technical Failure Behind the Disconnections

 

Too many families in Lawton and across Oklahoma are experiencing accidental utility defaults and sudden service disconnections during a routine move. This is a critical operational failure that stems directly from deep gaps in the digital infrastructure and Customer Information System (CIS) framework used by PSO and its parent company, American Electric Power (AEP).

 

Currently, the PSO My Account Portal treats a new service address as an entirely standalone entity rather than automatically nesting it within an existing customer's verified master profile. When a local resident requests a "Transfer of Service," the front-end website fails to programmatically bridge active payment data and historical balances across database records. Because the infrastructure treats data attributes (like active banking choices, paperless settings, or payment history) as premise-level data attached to the old physical structure rather than customer-level data attached to the individual's identity, billing loops completely break during the transition.

 

Manual workarounds on the backend create severe administrative backlogs. If an account isn't updated by a customer service agent perfectly before the first billing cycle at the new home hits, the customer defaults on an unlinked balance they cannot even see online, triggering an automated shutoff.

 

Our Demands for Technical Accountability

 

To resolve this lack of efficiency and enforce true corporate accountability, we demand that PSO and AEP modernize their digital architecture with these clear, measurable updates:

 

Deterministic API Identity Matching: PSO’s web engineering team must implement automated backend queries via unique primary identifiers (such as verified phone numbers, state IDs, or tax IDs). If a customer establishes service at a new meter, the system should instantly link that location token to their existing login profile.

Universal Customer Profile Tokens: User preferences—especially active enrollment in PSO AutoPay—must follow the customer profile across database migrations, rather than completely resetting at a new physical meter.

Automated CIS Safeguards: A system-wide business rule should be integrated directly into the automated delinquency engine to detect a recent "Move-In / Move-Out" request flag. If an address has undergone a service transfer within the last 60 days, the database should automatically suppress disconnections and route the account to an internal audit queue instead.

 

Our community deserves an efficient, modern digital interface that works. Upgrading these data matching protocols and optimizing the CIS backend will eliminate administrative errors, lower operational friction for staff, and prevent vulnerable Oklahoma homes from suddenly losing power during a move.

 

Please sign this petition to demand that PSO, AEP, and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission fix this broken digital loop and protect Oklahoman families from wrongful utility disconnections.