So I’ve been living in a corporate apartment in Wisconsin since November of last year. I don’t pay the rent (my company does), but I do have to put the utilities in my name, which I did when I moved in. Every month since then, we’ve been getting bills with “meter readings” on them (number of therms, price per therm, etc). I’ve paid every single one of them.
A couple of months ago, they call me up and tell me that they think something is wrong with my meter, can they come by and check it out? Sure, no problem. The guy determines that the meter is completly non-functional - according to him, it hasn’t been reading anything since it was installed December 1st.
And now I have a letter from them saying that they have been estimating my usage up to now. They have now done another estimate, based on historical gas usage in my apartment. I now owe another $82.94!
Skipping over the craziness of them not realizing they were getting nothing out of the meter for 4 months, I can’t figure out how the two estimates differ by $20/month (my bill is usually around $80, including electricity).
So, do I have any recourse here? My basic beef is that historical gas usage in my unit doesn’t really apply - I could have totally different heat habits than the people who lived there before. Basically, if they can’t prove I used more gas, how can they charge me for it?
Wait. If I understand what you are saying, someone over there was claiming to read the meter but actually just making stuff up and now they want you to pay extra money because the person doing this was making up a number that they feel was too low. Do I have that right?
Do you have copies of your gas bills? If the bill was “estimated”, it will say so. This means that the gas company looks at previous tenants’ usage and assumes that you’re using close to the same amount. If the bill does not say “estimated”, I’d call them on that and demand them to show that someone physically read the meter. If it was broken, the reader should have made a service call sooner.
From the letter:
“Wisconsin utilities are required to bill for estimated gas consumption if a meter fails to register. Based on historical gas used at … we’ve estimated that you used 93 therms during the period shown above.”
I’ve dug up some of the old bills, and they don’t say anything about estimated amount. They have a daily charge (just for the privelege of using gas, I guess) and then a reading of 0 therms. I think I was confused - basically, I haven’t been billed for anything the last 4 months, and now they’re trying to get it back.
These bills suck - they have electric use which takes up 2/3 of the bill, then 3 lines for the gas which has the meter reading and several other charges mushed together. Crazy.
So, false alarm, I guess. It still rankles that I have to pay for them screwing up, but I did use gas, and I should pay for it. If I don’t, other consumers will have to anyway, in higher rates.
If you think the gas company is doing something wrong or illegal, file a complaint here with the Public Service Commission. If the people who handle the complaints regarding gas companies are anything like the sharks I dealt with working for a phone company, the gas man will quake with fear at their approach.