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Permalink Reply by mickiebyrd on January 3, 2013 at 6:46

Yea you can get connected to someone in Chk customer service and waste your time getting them info and never get a response. Been there done That. They are gonna rip you off until a court tells them to stop. I believe that they have been told to do this until they have to stop. Thieves!!

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Permalink Reply by 2p6y7ycljui0u on January 3, 2013 at 7:24

That is the spirit!

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Permalink Reply by TL DS1 on January 3, 2013 at 8:17

Correct. They will just say they can deduct, even though your contract says they can't. A class action suit is the only way. 

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Permalink Reply by layla on January 4, 2013 at 5:33

I have learned not to even bother with their "customer service".  Over the last two and a half years I have dealt with people who either know a whole lot less than I do (which is saying they shouldn't be on the customer service line if they are that lacking in knowledge as I certainly do not know a lot about this); and with persons who would argue with me about what my lease said when I had the lease in front of me and they did not; and with a number of representatives of CHK who have deliberately lied to me.  Whether these lies are based on an individual trying to cover their ignorance or whether they are lies as a result of a corporate policy, I can't always say.  However, on this one particular well that I originally referenced, CHK said for several months that they would finally get the payment out "next month" and then after three months, decided that the reason they would use was that Petrohawk had not paid them in 14 months and this was repeated by more than one representative of CHK to persons other than myself so it was a widespread lie. I did contact Petrohawk and they were quite forceful in their statement that CHK was receiving their payments monthly.  Surpisingly, CHK then decided to refer me to their Legal Section and the payment was forthcoming in the check issued the end of December. Makes me wonder if someone at Petrohawk didn't call someone at CHK and tear them a new one....

I am not disputing their right to take expenses but rather the disproportionate amount of the expenses with no explanation of who gets what. I have compared what a JV well with Shell/Encana at no cost with a CHK well at no cost with a CHK well with expenses and then the Whitney well.  For the most egregious month, the difference was from $2.02 to $1.84 to $1.46 to $.90 respectively. For much of the months for which I was paid, the discrepancy between a CHK well with expenses and the Whitney well expenses was as much as 40% higher on the Whitney well.  This discrepancy has reduced to about 8%-10% in the last month for comparison (September 2012).  I can only hope that this is a trend as I do not expect that there will be any explanation/accounting from CHK.

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Permalink Reply by HBP on January 4, 2013 at 6:14

Layla, you are obviously paying close attention.  The boiled down issue is whether the reported price and then also amount of deductions are reasonable.  You can look to other  operators, wells, units, etc... but unfortunately that will not completely determine the issue since each may market their gas differently.

The first step is that the companies should report the amount of deductions for each production month if any were taken and itemize those deductions. (some do this some don't).  The next step would be to have a way to request further information on either the deducts or the realized price reported (without having to go into a discovery phase of a federal lawsuit).   But the argument from the industry could be that codified rules requiring informational access it is too burdensome, and, if the landowner wanted certain information access they could have written it into the lease.

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