Utility Horror Tales… “There are more frightening things than goblins and ghouls”
The utility companies miscalculate utility bills for many customers. This article explains some of these utility bill overcharges
In light of the upcoming Halloween season…. the following stories are just a few of the more horrific tales from the company files. Since 1989 we have seen the utility companies misread, misbill, miscalculate, miscount, mistake, misconstrue, misinform, misguide and mismanage – causing untold numbers of utility customers misery. The really scary thing is that due to downsizing, outsourcing, deregulation and franchising, utility mistakes are more common now than before…. and getting worse!
The Phantom Water Meter…
An association once called upon Pacific Utility Audit with a strange problem: They had paid 10 monthly water bills for years without being able to actually locate each water meter on their property.
A community board member spent hours of his free time trying to find the elusive water meters. As much as he searched, he never seemed to be able to locate one or two of them. His attempts to communicate with the utility company were futile — either they wouldn’t call him back, or they provided cryptic directions to the location of the water meter that were impossible to follow.
When a new board was elected, the search efforts were abandoned, only to resume years later when water rates began to dramatically increase.
In the face of these elevated water costs, the association turned to Pacific Utility Audit to decipher their confusing utility bills, locate the hard-to-find water meters, and deal with the unhelpful utility company.
To the association’s amazement, they discovered that they had been paying for an inactive water meter buried three feet underground!
As it turned out, the shady utility company, whose water meter readers could never actually locate the water meter, had been averaging the cost of the nine other water meters each month to come up with a bill for the unused tenth water meter all along — a practice that was hardly legal!
In the end, Pacific Utility Audit was able to locate the mystery water meter and recover all of the association’s money dating back to the start of the water account, plus accrued interest!
The City That Had No Boundaries….
Our next tale begins with an unsuspecting association that paid its utility bills each month for years and years and never questioned the accuracy of those utility bills. These folks knew that if they did not pay these bills each month, their water, gas, electricity or telephone service would be discontinued.
However, they, like so many other associations, did not really understand how to read or interpret these monthly utility bills. Furthermore, they trusted their city’s utility bills since their city was only responsible for billing a fairly small area – not like the big utility companies that had tens of thousand of customers and were governed by the state. In fact, the city offices were only a few miles from their association.
Their new manager was not quite so trusting, and asked us to audit their utility bills and contacted Pacific Utility Audit to audit all of their common-area utility bills
Therefore, they were doubly shocked when we informed them that their city had been billing them for ‘outside city’ water rates, which are almost double the cost of ‘inside city’ water rates!
As it turned out, back in 1972, the city had incorporated this association’s section of land into the city’s boundaries. Prior to 1972, this association had been in an unincorporated section of the county and the city offices were located much farther away. However, when the city had incorporated this new section of the county into the city’s boundaries, it had not relayed that information to it’s utility department. It had forgotten to change the utility rates for everybody in this section accordingly.
Once we informed the city of this little oversight, it took them four weeks to verify their own city boundaries, and another 4 months to correct the water overcharges and refund the association for all water overcharges due to this billing error!
This association views “their” city’s utility bills with a much more pragmatic and much less sentimental eye now…
The City That Had No Meters…
Our last tale begins with an association that “couldn’t have been overcharged because the city billed a flat fee only; there were no water meters”.
Fortunately for this association, the manager’s faith in the city’s utility billing department was a little less stout than than of the homeowners…
It was true that, like many cities, this city had started out billing on a flat fee basis. Every type of customer within this city had its own monthly fees for water and sewer service. (I.e. restaurants, offices, barbers, singly family homes, condominiums, etc.)
However, as the city grew, water meters were installed for all new clients – and for some old clients too. In this case, the city had installed two water meters for the association’s irrigation water, and was billing the association every month for all irrigation water registered by these two water meters. However, the association still received 41 other flat-fee water utility bills every month for its domestic water AND its irrigation water!
That’s right!! The city had never closed the association’s two old flat-fee irrigation water accounts after it installed the two irrigation water meters! Imagine the association’s amazement when they found out that they had been paying for their irrigation water not once, but twice every month!
At least this city was a little bit more accommodating and issued a full retroactive refund to the association for all of the double water charges within two weeks. (although it did make the association provide all of the backup documentation for these double water charges, even though it was the city’s error!)
Now this association also views “their” city’s utility bills with a much more pragmatic and much less sentimental eye…
Needless to say, these are just a few of the hundreds of horror stories that we have in our company files, gathered over many years.
It is terrifying to think that utilities are usually the biggest budget item each year, yet these kinds of overcharges continue to occur on an ongoing basis.
You see, there are more frightening things than goblins and ghouls….. Happy Halloween season!
To begin a utility audit, click here: https://pacificutilityaudit.com/How-to-Begin