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Hi,

I have more of a legal question. My friend is in South Carolina. Rock Hill to be exact. She is a single mom who has been unemployed for four years and is continuing trying to seek work. Her electric company continually gives her problems with disconnections even though she continually tries to contact them and in good faith set up payments to keep her electricity on. This morning she made the entire past due payment on her account to avoid disconnection and the electric company disconnected her power anyways. When the person arrived to cut off the power she informed them that the bill had been paid and was informed that her name was on a disconnection list and there was nothing they could do she would have to call customer service. The man disconnected the power and refused to wait until she was able to speak with customer service at the power company. After a twenty minute wait on the phone with a customer service representative, she was told that she should have talked to a customer service representative instead of just making the payment online. The disconnect list had already been printed the day before. The problem is the payment was made earlier in the morning before the power company opened. There was no customer service representative available to talk to. If the company would have checked that morning prior to sending out someone to disconnect my friend's power they would have seen the payment had been made. Anyways, my friend asked could they radio the guy since he had just left and probably was still in the neighborhood to come and reconnect since disconnect was made in error. My friend was informed that they could not do that and that she would have to wait to be reconnected when they began reconnection rounds and the customer service representative could not advise how long it would be. My friend advised that she had four young children in the house and the temperatures were expected to be in lower to mid 90's today. All of this occurred around 9 am this morning and it is now almost 12 noon and my friend still does not have her power restored. My question is what legal rights does she have? Are there not laws to protect consumers from actions like this? We have reviewed laws protecting from power being disconnected during lower temperatures but are there laws to prevent disconnection when temperatures are higher? And what about when they have actually received payment but are in no hurry to restore power when they are aware of the situation and know there are young children in the house. Does my friend have any recourse?

I am a single parent of 3 small children, all under 14 years old. I do not have access to internet. A friend is letting me use their Smartphone to research help today. My telephone number can only be contacted by phone.
I was injured at work a year ago. My only vehicle was repossessed in August. I live in the country, rural area 15 miles from nearest town. The doctor deemed me totally disabled and I have lawyers helping with workers compensation and SSI disability but need help with electric and water bills while I'm waiting for them. I have used churches, Salvation army, community action agency and have exhausted those funds.
I do not have a working furnace and have been using space heaters continuously all winter. I do not know what to do anymore, I cannot travel to search for help, don't have a computer to search for help, and don't know where else to turn for help now. Please help. Please call and let me know if there's anything I can do to keep water and electricity for my family before it is shut off illegally. I do receive food stamps and $300 in cash assistance each month, my water bill is normally around $75, electric has been $500 a month this winter, normally around $300. Again, please call me and let me know. Thank you very much.