The experience of this customer highlights how easily a high bill can be generated and how hard it can be to sort out why it's high.
Mr F received a $7,000 bill for electricity to a shed where he was running only a mini bar fridge. The shed had no lights and was used for storing furniture. After having electricity connected to the shed in October 2008, he received his first bill in July 2009 - $7,000 for some seven months from October 2008 to mid-May 2009. His next bill was $50, for the three months from mid-May 2009 to mid-August 2009. Mr F thought the bills were based on estimated meter readings.
The Investigation
The retailer insisted Mr F's bill was correct and went to some lengths to demonstrate that. It advised that its bills were based on high quality actual consumption data provided by the local electricity distributor. It provided an account reconciliation. It confirmed Mr F had a manually read interval meter (MRIM), that he was being billed for the correct meter number, and that he was on its "Residential Weekend Saver: tariff which accommodated off peak. It said its billing was in accordance with the Energy Retail Code. It also noted that Mr F's usage had spiked on a number of days in late 2008 and early 2009, but could find no explanation for this.
A meter test undertaken at Mr F's cost showed there was no fault with the meter, but the reading taken at the time showed usage of 140 kilowatt hours (kWh). This contrasted with the first bill Mr F received, which showed usage of 26,000 kWh.
Pending its receipt of a file of information from the metering data provider, the retailer offered Mr F a 12 month payment plan to pay the outstanding $7,188.58 off, in monthly instalments of $599.04.
Once received, the retailer provided the file to us, noting that it reflected actual data obtained from the interval meter, showed unusual spikes of consumption which it speculated were due to appliance usage or faults, and confirmed its billing of Mr F's usage.
We used the data in this file to recalculate Mr F's bill arriving at a much lower amount. We also identified that the metering data provider usage data was in watt hours, not kilowatt hours. We put it to the retailer that it had billed Mr F's watt hours usage as kilowatt hours usage.
The retailer subsequently confirmed our finding. It advised that the basis of its billing was kilowatt hours. Data the distributor sent to it in watts should have been automatically converted through the retailer's computer system into kilowatts. In Mr F's case, a system fault meant it wasn't . The retailer said it hadn't encountered the problem before and it was seeking a solution.
The Outcome
The complaint was resolved when the retailer apologised and confirmed it had billed Mr F incorrectly. It provided him with a revised bill and full account reconciliation. It waived $201.81 in meter reading and meter testing fees he'd been charged and applied a $50 customer service credit to his account. This left a balance of $223.40 which was in line with the back billing provisions of the Energy Retail Code. Mr F was given nine months to pay.( C/2009/25632)
