State Bar of Wisconsin — Local services in Madison

Wisconsin state bar and most of the lawyers tethered to them are next to useless.

My wife and I are new home owners and recently we received a notice in the mail from WE Energy (3/22/23) that their records show our home as vacant. I called them and not only do they consider us vacant, but a vacant Verizon Wireless Tower business. And they’ve billed us as such since we moved into our home in May 2021. As new home owners we didn’t know what to expect with the price, but it has been lower than expected.

So I began digging into our account using WE Energy’s website to find out we have access to 916 other Verizon Wireless towers accounts, their billing records, their energy consumption, I can change certain things in their accounts, I have access that I should not have. Then on top of that my wife received hundreds of emails a day with actual people’s bills owed to WE, total amounts, full names and addresses. These are actual customers, not just Verizon accounts.

Recently after taking my complaints to social media, someone from corporate contacted me from WE Energies explaining the fiasco.

He said that what happened was that we have a Verizon box behind our home. And that Verizon was using our address for their mail regarding the new box before we moved in. And somehow WE Energies didn’t get the memo to change the address once the new tenants (us) moved in. So my wife signed up with WE Energies and we awaited the account number they’d send to us. It came, and WE claims it had Verizon Wireless’ name on it with our address. Unfortunately, that letter is long gone so there’s no way to prove it didn’t have our names on it.

But even if it did have Verizon’s name on it, we are both Verizon Wireless’ customers, we are (unfortunately) WE Energies customers, and the mail had our address on it. Anyone could have made that mistake and WE best get off the idea that we intentionally opened the mail KNOWING it belonged to Verizon. THAT IS A LIE.

So I asked the corporate manager “you’re telling me that if I pre sign up before I get my account number, I can sign up with ANY account number? He said it’s meant for the convenience of the customer to not have any additional security.

We are paying WE Energies back as Wisconsin law allows power companies to back bill two years. 1. But between Verizon Wireless using our home for their mail, 2. then WE Energies making the mistake of tying our information to a Verizon account, 3. leaking private data of their customers and of Verizon’s to my wife and I, 4. and the over all stress they’ve put us through I hoped that something could be done legally. But the state bar sends me over to lawyers who waste my time and say they can’t help me without giving me any reason what so ever. And the state bar employees basically went dark and won’t email me back

Makes me wonder if this whole state, government, utility companies, lawyers, and the media are all in...

Zero star for the referral service.

We just spoke to a referral specialist who was extremely rude to us. When she asked if we could afford an attorney rate of $300-400 an hour, we simply wanted to clarify if we would receive the initial consultation at the lower rate as described on the website before answering the question. We also inquired if this situation would be appropriate for a referral to an attorney, as the website indicates that the referral specialist will assess the situation and make the appropriate referral.

The call connection was somewhat choppy, so we couldn’t hear what she said clearly. We asked a couple more times for clarification, but she seemed frustrated and whispered, "Oh my gosh," over the phone. She never apologized and insisted that she could hear us just fine. When I mentioned that she owed us an apology for her rudeness, the call disconnected.

When we called back, the same person answered the phone, stating that the connection was bad and had been disconnected. This contradicted her earlier statement. I am extremely disappointed with how unprofessional she was.

It seems like a pattern based on reading...

This service appears to be a joke. Immediately, they're asking if you can afford an attorney, before they've even helped you find one. It appears that they get your information and give the defense a heads up. There's no way to see if there's a conflict of interest, while talking to them. It's should be illegal to gather information by these methods. No one should be paying for a consult. The first question you should be asking is what parties are involved before going any further. Most of the time, no lawyers call back. It's like they're screening to see if you're black or white, rich or poor. The consult should be to see if you even have a case, which used to be 30 minutes free. That's part of doing business. Most of these law firms aren't even good. You end up better doing it yourself. Too many lawyers handed degrees in Wisconsin. Oversaturated with "C" level attorneys. Not all made...