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Electrical problems

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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!
 


moburkes

Senior Member
How did you "lose" your apartment?

They don't estimate your usage, based on usage in other households. They estimate your usage based on the last 12 months, or "this time last year". So, if the unit was empty last year, for example, then the estimation was based on $0.00 this time last month, or based on your landlord keeping the heat at the minimum so as not to have busted pipes.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
Our electric company calls that the "Level Pay Plan" and you have to CHOOSE to be on that plan. You agree when you sign up for that plan that you will "make up" the difference between the estimated usage and the actual usage. Now, are you trying to claim that you didn't use that much energy? Because I don't think you have much of a leg to stand on if you are arguing that the billing method is unfair (because you agreed to it).
 

moburkes

Senior Member
You also could have been proactive. You had the opportunity to ask them to come out for an ACTUAL reading, instead of relying on the estimated reading. Your LL went as far as getting a licensed electrician to inspect the wiring to make sure that it was correct. I'm not sure what more you are looking for since the charges appear to be legitimate. Just because they are "high" doesn't mean that you have a leg to stand on legally.
 

UnlnvlslblE

Junior Member
How did you "lose" your apartment?

They don't estimate your usage, based on usage in other households. They estimate your usage based on the last 12 months, or "this time last year". So, if the unit was empty last year, for example, then the estimation was based on $0.00 this time last month, or based on your landlord keeping the heat at the minimum so as not to have busted pipes.
I didn't state clearly what I meant by losing the apartment. I mean we had to move out because we couldn't afford to pay so much for electricity. We didn't "lose" the apartment per say but when none of us can afford the bill there is nothing else to do but leave.

I'm not 100% sure if the landlord was occupying our space this time last year. A new landlord had just bought the house and rented the first floor to us. He told us the previous landlord lived in the very same space.

Speaking about the previous landlord, brings to mind a previous call to the electric company about this issue. The woman on the other end had said this sounds normal and the person living there was paying almost as much as us. (If they knew this, why did they estimate so low?) They had said all the rates for the entire building were very high. They kept telling me to take it up with the landlord and that its not their problem.

Even if there was $0 usage in any or all of the previous 12 months where did they get this estimated number? Are they using any form of standard accepted mathematical principals? They knew new tenants were moved in when we activated the account. How could they base their assumptions on such bad data? I know a bit about statistics, averages and medians and what not so this isn't rocket science. There has to be something we can do to get them to lower the bill or something we can do to verify that we actually used that much electricity. Estimation is not an exact science however there are acceptable margins of error. I believe this falls out of the boundaries of acceptable and am hoping there is something protecting us from such an egregious error.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
it really makes it no difference if they estiamted and even estimated poorly when billing you. They have the right to charge you for what youactually used and that is all they are doing.

A poor estimation of usage gives you no claim to deny responsibility for waht you did actually use.

Unless you can prove the actual usage reading are incorrect, you simply owe the bill.

Your make up charges are just about what I pay for 2 years of electricity in my house. It seems to be an exhorbitant amount but you would have to prove there was a problem that caused the bill to be falsely high to be able to have any right to actually and honestly try to change the billings.
 
Did they come read the meter when you moved in? Or is it possible that some of this is from before september. Where I live they estimate for a 12 month period so that you pay the same year around summer and winter. They also read the meter once a year to make sure your charged all you owe. Of course the actual charges in winter will be much higher than summer especially with electic heat. I would at least double check that the meter was read when you moved in.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
Its too bad you didnt just go read the meter your self and then call it into the utility right after you got the bill each time it said estimated billing was used . Over the years a number of times for one reason or other I have had to call in meter readings. IF you didnt get accurate readings during the time you lived there thats too bad but you still need to work this out with the electric co.
 
I agree that this has to be worked out with the electric company.

I always read my meter immediately and let it known to the company. It is unfortunate you didn't think to do that.

One time the people before me told the company a different reading and the electric company went after them for the difference I was not responsible for what I didn't use.

Hope you get this worked out.
 

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