Problem Solver: $1800 electric bill

By Dianne Derby
Anchor
Published: July 1, 2008

How does an $1800 electric bill sound to you? It’s certainly an amount no one wants to pay. But one Upstate family was faced with this dilemma when they found out their electric meter wasn’t correctly reading their usage. Dianne Derby got their complaint in the right hands in this 7 On Your Side Problem Solver.

Rickey Skipper says a few weeks ago he found out he had 6 months to pay a more $1800 unexpected power bill from Duke Energy .
“I immediately knew it was a mistake a mistake on their part not mine,“ said Skipper. “So we called and the response was it was due to a faulty meter.“

Duke Energy says the Skippers were using more electricity than the meter registered. The worst part about it was the Skipper family was paying $87 dollars a month through Duke Energy’s Equal Payment Plan. The plan provides an average bill amount that Duke calculates for its customers.
“I’ve only been here 19 months today so 14 of those months I’ve been paying a faulty power bill on a fixed payment plan that they set up,“ said Skipper.

7 On Your Side addressed his concerns during a phone interview with Duke Energy spokesperson Tim Pettit.

When asked why customers like the Skippers are responsible for the bill when the faulty meter is Duke’s fault Pettit replied, “You’re responsible because you use the energy. This is a device that’s set up to accurately record and it is highly accurate and most all the time it does accurately record that.“

But this time it didn’t. Pettit says they calculated the amount based on past historical usage at the home. It’s a decision backed by the South Carolina code of laws (To view the specifics in the SC Code click here).  But we wanted to make sure Duke was correct so we contacted the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff to investigate the bill. The agency represents the public interest in utility regulation. Executive Director C. Dukes Scott said his agency would be asking Duke Energy for the test results and finding out how they calculated the new bill. He said he would forward the results of the investigation to us.

In the meantime, Duke offered to work with the Skippers and extend the payment deadline from 6 months to 14 months giving them a little bit longer to pay a bill that’s way more than they bargained for.

If you have a complaint about one of your utility companies remember to contact the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff at 1-800-922-1531 or click here.