UnlnvlslblE
Junior Member
What is the name of your state? MA
Sorry if I have this in the wrong section, but here goes...
We are having a problem with our electric bill. We moved into our apartment in Sept '06 and are all moved out by the end of Jan '07. We have electric heat but bear in mind this has been the most mild winter I have seen in many years. The electric company had been "estimating" our bills for no more than $85 of usage per month from September to December. At the end of December they took an actual reading and are now charging us with $2,500 in back-dated usage. We confronted the landlord about the situation and had an electrician come in and inspect the house. I was not present during the inspection but one of my roommates was there. The electrician said everything was wired properly and there was nothing to worry about.
After this I called the electric company and spoke with a few different people about the issue. They seem to think that everything is perfectly fine and their charge is just. I confronted them about their method of "estimation" (mind you this "estimate" was 8x lower than the actual usage) and they said they computed the estimate based on the charges of the past billing periods on the house. When asked how they could get a number 8x off, they responded to the effect of "the usage must have been low." To me this is an unacceptable answer. They have millions of subscribers to pull data from and they came up with a number 8x off the actual usage?
My question is: Is there some kind of consumer protection against electric companies under-estimating by such a large amount? I would have absolutely no problem paying the bill if it was even 2 or 3 times more than the estimations; but 8 times more? I'm no math professor but I do have a BS in Computer Information Systems and I know a good deal of math. Estimating something 8x off is not normal, especially when you have millions of pieces of data to work with.
They have offered us a plan to pay off the bill over a 5 month period with no interest but to me that is still unacceptable. What can I do here? We lost our apartment and now are losing thousands of dollars that we should have been billed for 5 months ago. Can you fight the electric company? Thanks for any suggestions!
Sorry if I have this in the wrong section, but here goes...
We are having a problem with our electric bill. We moved into our apartment in Sept '06 and are all moved out by the end of Jan '07. We have electric heat but bear in mind this has been the most mild winter I have seen in many years. The electric company had been "estimating" our bills for no more than $85 of usage per month from September to December. At the end of December they took an actual reading and are now charging us with $2,500 in back-dated usage. We confronted the landlord about the situation and had an electrician come in and inspect the house. I was not present during the inspection but one of my roommates was there. The electrician said everything was wired properly and there was nothing to worry about.
After this I called the electric company and spoke with a few different people about the issue. They seem to think that everything is perfectly fine and their charge is just. I confronted them about their method of "estimation" (mind you this "estimate" was 8x lower than the actual usage) and they said they computed the estimate based on the charges of the past billing periods on the house. When asked how they could get a number 8x off, they responded to the effect of "the usage must have been low." To me this is an unacceptable answer. They have millions of subscribers to pull data from and they came up with a number 8x off the actual usage?
My question is: Is there some kind of consumer protection against electric companies under-estimating by such a large amount? I would have absolutely no problem paying the bill if it was even 2 or 3 times more than the estimations; but 8 times more? I'm no math professor but I do have a BS in Computer Information Systems and I know a good deal of math. Estimating something 8x off is not normal, especially when you have millions of pieces of data to work with.
They have offered us a plan to pay off the bill over a 5 month period with no interest but to me that is still unacceptable. What can I do here? We lost our apartment and now are losing thousands of dollars that we should have been billed for 5 months ago. Can you fight the electric company? Thanks for any suggestions!