|
High bill not quite what it seemedC/2008/4188
Ms K received an electricity bill of $961.75 for the period October 2007 – January 2008. She said this came as a shock because her three previous bills were $69.75, $66.80 and $255.45.
Ms K said that access to her meter was available, so her bills should have been based on meter readings. As her meter had already been tested and found to be recording accurately, she wondered whether numerous power outages during the past 12 months may have contributed to the high bill. She also questioned the basis on which the tariff had been applied.
To assist our investigation, we asked the retailer for a range of information about Ms K’s account. We also asked the retailer to investigate other possible reasons for the high bill, aside from increased usage.
While investigating Ms K’s complaint, we learnt of issues her local distributor had with one meter reader — who’d been recording meter readings as actuals, without ever going to the properties. While this was discovered only recently, it had been
going on for many months. We contacted the distributor and confirmed this.
This aside, the retailer said the high bill Ms K was querying was correct — that it was based on an actual meter read, the tariffs were applied correctly and the outages wouldn’t have affected it. The retailer also provided a detailed account reconciliation which included Ms K’s usage and billing history at the property. It believed the high bill was the result of previous under-readings of Ms K’s meter. The distributor agreed. Ms K accepted this.
The retailer offered Ms K a $500 credit to her account in recognition of the inconvenience this matter had caused her. The distributor also apologised and sent her a cheque for $50. For her part, Ms K accepted the explanations and the account credit and agreed to pay the remaining balance by the due date.
This case highlighted the dramatic effect an unexpected high bill can have on a customer’s capacity to not only pay it, but allocate money to other expenses. It also brought to light the situation one distributor was faced with when it discovered the inappropriate actions of one of its meter readers.
(This case is representative of the complaints we raised with the ESC in relation to systemic issue SI/2008/21.)
Return to Electricity case studies
|
|
|
|
|