What's up with Consumer's Energy Weird Billing??? (credit report, house)

[usermi]

They're driving me nuts, check this out:

Jan - $193
Feb - $438
Mar - $16
Apr - $276

Now, before March I needed to get some insulation fixed but still the billing seems outrageous for a 3 bedroom bungalow with 3 people living here specially after a handyman came to do some insulation repairs. But what's the deal with 438 to 16 to 276? Are they messing up their readings? I'm afraid to call them and they said instead of 16 it was 216!! lol

Thanks!

[detwahDJ]

Originally Posted by usermi

They're driving me nuts, check this out:

Jan - $193
Feb - $438
Mar - $16
Apr - $276

Now, before March I needed to get some insulation fixed but still the billing seems outrageous for a 3 bedroom bungalow with 3 people living here specially after a handyman came to do some insulation repairs. But what's the deal with 438 to 16 to 276? Are they messing up their readings? I'm afraid to call them and they said instead of 16 it was 216!! lol

Thanks!

For one thing, the meters are not read at regular intervals. They sometimes skip a month and do an estimate. Check those reading dates first, and the amount of gas used to see if they jibe, then average them out over 4 months.
Those are rather odd jumps though, but maybe they are trimming help or having some such issue. Also, if a meter is not read for some reason, they do an estimated billing based on something. Could be the $16 was a correction due to a February over-estimate. Notice it came immediately after the largest bill, and they sort of average out. Check your February bill to see if "type of reading" was an estimate.

[Coldjensens]

We got billings like this for a while form DTE (gas/electric combined, but the numbers were bigger). When we tried to get it straightened out, they told us they had under billed us and we owed them $1800 or some-such. When we complained they looked into it and added another $2400./ This nonsense continued until they were claiming we owed them $6700. Then they just gave us the run around and dinged our credit report. Finally we filed a complaint with the PUC and in a few days it was back down to $1200. I think we paid $900 - $1200 to resolve it and get our credit cleared. However they continued to ding our credit until we threatened to sue them, then they finally straightened it out. They had tons of excuses (your dog scares the meter reader away" "Umm, No, the dog is usually inside the house or inside a fenced run, when the dog is out I have seen him come, pet the dog and read the meter. Sometimes he brings the dog a biscuit." Later: The meter is inaccessible" "Umm no, it is right next to the driveway. With good eyesight, you do not even need to get out of your vehicle to read it" Your meter was disconnected for a time and you were getting free gas" "Nope not that either" . . . . . "Your dog scared the meter reader away" "Sigh - biscuits , remember?" "We were just estimating the amounts, you need to pay the actual usage" "How did you estimate amounts between $60 and 800 (and once $1200) and how after paying something around $600 a month on average can we still owe more money for gas?" "Well it is because you have a big scary dog. . . . "

The reality was the president of the company needed to re-do his jaccuzzi and they figured we would be a good source for the funding.

[Retroit]

How about keeping track of your meter readings on your own? Maybe read it once a week and record it on a calendar, etc. That way you can compare your readings to future bills.