Applicants must have a picture ID and a Social Security card or certifiable Social Security Number, and a rental contract if rental property. A copy of this identification will be made and placed in the applicant's permanent file. Applicant shall provide Cooperative with a current street address and mailing address, a telephone number, if available, and a rental contract if rental property.

All applicants for service who have had service with the Cooperative previously but who have no current active account with the Cooperative must also make application at the Donalsonville office of the Cooperative, present a picture ID, a Social Security card or certifiable Social Security Number, a street address, a mailing address, and a telephone number, if available. A copy of this identification will be made and placed in the applicant's permanent file.

All applications for service by customers who have no active account will require a search by name and Social Security number in the Cooperative's data base for bad debts. All applications for additional service or additional meter sets by Cooperative members who have active accounts will require a search in the Cooperative's data base for payment history. Any member with two or more payments more than 30 days late must submit the same credit inquiry as new applicants. When conducting inquiries in the Cooperative's computer data base, Cooperative customer service personnel will note any missing information in a member's file and shall collect any missing information such as correct 911 address, a correct mailing address, a correct Social Security number, and a correct home and work telephone numbers, if available.

A service security deposit shall be collected for each meter in advance of connecting any service with respect to which the Cooperative determines that such deposit is needed to assure payment of the power bill.

In determining the need for service security deposits and in fixing the amount of such deposits, the Cooperative will depend primarily on credit scores obtained from a reputable utility credit reporting service. Credit ratings for residential customers will be divided into three categories. These categories are good, fair and poor. The amount of service deposits for these categories are:

• Good--$10.00

• Fair--$150.00

• Poor--$300.00

Note: Any customer not willing to submit to a credit inquiry must pay the maximum deposit;
Note: Any customer having no credit history or an inadequate history must pay a $150 deposit.

These guidelines apply to all new residential customers regardless of the type of dwelling in which the customer resides. Any residential customer that has been required to post a deposit higher than the $10.00 minimum deposit can have the excess credited back to their account after they have paid their account on or before the due dated posted on their bill for 12 consecutive months. The Cooperative reserves the right to require a higher deposit than those listed above up to a maximum equal to two months anticipated usage on the affected account if the Cooperative determines that this is necessary because of special circumstances. These special circumstances include, but are not limited to, very high usage accounts or extremely problematic accounts (poor payment history, meter tampering, etc.)

No interest in any form will be paid on deposits or membership fees placed with the Cooperative.