Man I tell you what..... I'm so damn sick of electric companies "estimating" monthly bills. Our electric company will estimate the bill and claim it was weather related.. They even do this when the weather is decent.. For the past two months they have estimated my bills.. I'm the Residential Manager of the apartment building I live in, and I actually have two apartments... One is a really small one that my wife and I use for storage. It's only used for anything serious in the summer time.. The refrigerator is unplugged, and anything that can suck juice is turned off and unplugged too. My bills for that place have been $5.00 a month. They estimated my bill last month and jumped that puppy from $5.00 to $30.00.. What pisses me off is that we didn't use ANY power over there that month. Then I get another bill today and my current billing. Again those SOB's estimated the damn bills when the weather was good and they could have read them. This time they over estimated my bill by 400 points.. One bill that went from $5.00 to $30.00, went from $30.00 to over $60.00, and again we didn't use ANY power over there.. Plus our main apartments bill has been grossly over estimated too. On top of that we realized today that they never turn our deposit back into our account. My wife had to call and make them do that. If they estimate my bill again next month, and the weather is good I'm using my Firms attorney's and nailing those bastards. So far on our small apartment for storage I've been overpayed by $80.00 in the last 2 months and overpayed by over $40.00 for our main apartment.. So in the past 2 months we've paid like $130.00 extra. That's bull****. Just wanted to share my frustration.

Squeak

When they actually take the time to read the actual meter, won't you have a credit for all the money overpaid?
"they never turn our deposit back into our account". Are you saying they don't apply your payments against your accounts?
In Canada, if they don't have access to your meter, they leave a card you can fill in and mail or call in and therfore have a correct reading.
Starkeeper

Yeah we'll get our account credited once they actually "read" the meter.. The trick word here is "read" They can turn around next month again and say that they had to estimated the bill once again. If they do this that'll be 3 months in a row without a reading.. I don't mind the occasional estimate, when the weather doesn't permit reading the meter, but to do it 2 months in a row when the weather is actually good really gets to me. Our deposit was supposed to be credited towards our account after 12 months of service with them. We've been with them for several years and it wasn't until my wife called today that they finally credited the deposit.. Here in the US if they don't read your meter they don't leave a card.. They just give you an estimated reading, and those are generally far off.

Squeak

Just be happy you don't live in Norway.
Usually and through the past years we have nothing to complaint about
regarding to price level of el. power supply.
But during the last year or two it really took off. As you might now,
we have a lot of waterfalls who are rebuild to run the turbins, but
the Weather Gods don't always do as we wish, either it rains to much
or far less than needed.
Never the less, the prices rise, and just now the management supervisors
sitting in a crise meeting to figure out how to rise the price even more,
because it's raining too much, and the water reservoir overflow.
A few weeks/months ago the crise meetings was about rise the price because
of the dry weather.
Here we read our meter ourselves, and send a card, and of course that is a
reason to rise the prices even more, because they have the trouble to read
what we wrote.
Hopefully our suppliers read this too, but I guess they don't play
keyboards, and also I realize my post is a kind of off-topic
Happy X-Mas with lots of electic decorations everyone.
GJ

Squeak,
When that happens here, all I do is call them up and provide them with the actual readings. BG&E credits my account immediately--it's that simple. Give em' a call. You may be surprised.

Gary

Gary,
My wife already spoke to them and they basically said their's nothing they can do when the meter is estimated, and we'll have to wait until they actually come out the next time to read the meter (if they come at all)... Seriously though if it's estimated for 3rd month I'm considering legal action.. I talked with a few of the attorney's at the firm, and it turns out the electric company isn't estimating everyone's bills... I have people in my neighborhood who have had their meters read recently. For the past 2 months they've been estimating my building. I've already overpaid by quite a bit, and I'm not going to put up with it next month. One of the attorney's made a comment on how some electric companies will selectivly estimate bills for the extra money.. Sort of taking small loans from customers considering the see it credited back to their account later. If that's the case I still say screw them... That's bad business.

Squeak

Squeak

Hi Squeak, just feel lucky you didn't live in California the past few years, where we saw our energy bills skyrocket over 200%, as a result of crooked politicians & price gouging by out of state oil companies. Thankfully, after investigation and settlement, we finally got some of our money refunded and our rates reduced. In California, we are given the 'option' to choose if we want to go with an estimated pay bill system or not. I prefer & chose the pay as you go plan. - Scott

Complain, Complain....................

I'd better not bitc* about my electric company! They might turn me OFF and I'll have to play my PSR2000 on batteries.............................DARN! It doesn't have any!!

It almost sounds like your meter reader is lazy, just skips some buildings and blames it on the weather.
Starkeepr

Squeak,
My electric company allows me to read the meter on the months that they don't come. I then send them the meter read and they take may word for it. I can either mail it in, Phone it in, or send it by computer.
The other option is to go solar like I have (check my web page) and supply most of the elctricity yourself
See if you can't do the reads yourself in the off months. Hopefully next year they will be better at estimating from this years data.

Happy Holidays to All!

- Brian