Previous post TL;DR: We noticed an inconsistency in our most recent power bill, went back and looked at our previous bills, and realized this has been going on for some time. There is a consistent power draw at night, we can see it on the graph that our power company has online. It draws pretty consistently from 12 to 6 a.m. and uses on an average $0.15 every 15 minutes. We are not using this power. When this draw is not happening, we use about $2 a day. When the draw is happening, we are charged anywhere from $5 to $20 a day. According to our calculations, we have been over overpaying our power company to the tune of about $2,000 over the last year.
We went and talked to our property management Friday when I got off of work, and while they said they were sorry to hear about our issues it was definitely our power company's responsibility to fix.
By the time my roommate got home, who is the only one listed on the account, our power company's customer service was closed for the weekend and we had to wait until Monday to give them a call.
On Monday, my roommate called while I was at work, and the man she spoke to at the power company was so extremely condescending and belittling that almost made her cry. She had to ask for over half an hour before he would agree to send someone out to check the meter. He was laughing at her the whole time. She came to me on my lunch break and we called the power company back so that I could talk to them and be less emotionally distressed than her; however, the woman talked to was much more helpful, or at least much more pleasant, than the man she had spoken with before.
She tried to convince us that it was our water heater that was drawing $0.15 to $0.20 every 15 minutes for 6 to 8 hours a day during the night, since we don't use our HVAC system. However, this doesn't make any sense to me, as this continued all summer as well.
The power company was really sticking their feet in and seemed to be refusing to take any kind of responsibility, so we looked into who their regulatory body was and how to contact them, so that when they came to check the meter and refused to help us, we would be ready.
After we scheduled the meter reading, I contacted an electrician to see what they had to say about it. As soon as I told them what was happening, they said that no, this would be the power company's responsibility to fix. They also were very concerned about who was going to pay them, whether it was us or the property management. They were sorry to hear about our situation, but said that it should be the power company who should help us. At this point I realized we would be getting the royal run around from all parties involved and did not want to deal with that stress, so I was ready to elevate to the regulatory body.
The next day the power company sent someone out to check the meter. They said it was functioning at 100% accuracy and that they would not help us and that it would be something we would need to contact an electrician for and that the property management would be responsible for fixing, if we really weren't using it ourselves.
We have a smart meter and, before the meter reader came out, I had done some research into them and realized that they are both very easy to hack and have a well-known history of sometimes inflating their readings up to 600% more than was actually used. When the power company meter reader said it was functioning at 100% accuracy, I don't necessarily disbelieve them, but neither do I hold that as a solid truth, after having looked at the history. Our meter usually functions pretty normally during the day and draws ungodly amounts of power at night, so I took what they said with a grain of salt.
As soon as the meter reader left, we contacted the Kansas Corporation Commission and filed an informal complaint against the power company. The woman my roommate spoke to said that she would look into it and get back with us as soon as she had contacted the power company to see what they had to say about it.
Now our most recent and current bill, which we have not yet received in the mail, is running at 67% lower than the rest of our average bills; this bill is the only one that the power company sent to the Kansas Corporation Commission, which I find extremely disingenuous on the power company's part. The woman from the Kansas Corporation Commission contacted us the next day after having looked at that most current bill and said she couldn't find any irregularities that we were concerned about. After realizing she only received that most recent bill, we asked her if she could look up other specific days, as we had 318 of them we were concerned about. She said she could, but she's only wanted about 20 of them, which we gave to her.
She contacted us the next day or so and said that, while she agreed the power draw looking extremely irregular and highly unusual, she had used all of her resources and fulfilled the extent of her expertise and was unable to help us further; however, she would send us the paperwork to file a formal complaint against the power company, which we should receive in the mail today.
This next level is a legal level and will require communicating with lawyers. Unfortunately, we are moving out of the state in the next two weeks, so this as an additional hassle on top of the stress of moving. Hopefully the power company will want to settle this out of court, and we will all reach a conclusion we can be satisfied with; however, if this is not something they are willing to do, I think we have a strong enough case to fight it.
Once this formal complaint level is resolved, I will post another update to let you all know what happened.
TL;DR: we have been trying to get it fixed, but no one is taking responsibility. We should be getting paperwork in the mail today to file a formal complaint against our power company and take it to court.
Edit: changed 'vulnerable' to 'distressed' due to a douchebag commenter.
April 05, 2019 at 08:28AM
