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B.C. Hydro apologizes for under billing

Whistler residents hit with large, unexplained hydro bills

An undetermined number of Whistler and Squamish residents got a nasty surprise in the mail recently from B.C. Hydro.

Unable to read the meters in October due to the flooding and during the winter as late as April due to staffing problems, B.C. Hydro estimated the power usage for residents.

Unfortunately B.C. Hydro used their August numbers to make those estimates, so that by the time they got around to finally reading meters some customers had been under-billed for a period of six months.

As a result many customers were shocked to receive bills for the full amount.

Paul Fournier was one of the customers who was surprised by a higher than expected bill. Last month he received a B.C. Hydro bill for $800 – it would have been $1,100 but he had overpaid on a previous bill.

"It’s six months later and I’m thinking I’ve been so efficient with my hydro, I’ve saved all kinds of money having fires, and blah, blah blah. Then all of a sudden I get a bill, and I’m thinking it’s been pretty nice the last couple of months, it’s going to be pretty easy, then I open it up and it’s $1,100. I’m thinking, how did it go from $300 to $1,100?" said Fournier.

There was no explanation on the bill, so Fournier called B.C. Hydro to complain. He had to work his way up the ranks to a supervisor, spending an hour on the phone, before he was given an explanation.

Compounding his problem, B.C. Hydro wouldn’t allow Fournier to make the payment by credit card without charging him an extra $35 on the money he owned. He went to the bank to pay cash.

While he could afford B.C. Hydro’s mistake, he says that someone who was working for him wasn’t so lucky and actually had his power cut off. That situation was made worse by the fact that the person had roommates who have already left Whistler believing that they were fully paid up.

The Pique has heard of at least three other stories in the past week, although none of the sources was willing to go on record. In those cases, the extent of the under-billing ranged from around $250 to $500.

B.C. Hydro has acknowledged the problem and says it won’t happen again.

"I can tell you we’ve had some challenges with meter reading in that area from about October ’03 to April ’04," said Elisha Moreno, the media relations manager for B.C. Hydro.

"In October of 2003 during the scheduled meter reading there was flooding and the Sea to Sky Highway was closed. When it reopened it was only periodically through the day, and not in time to allow our meter reads to get there – so that was the challenge for the fall.

"Following that we had some challenges with staff in the area, so we couldn’t get meter readers out to the area and were forced to do that estimation. That of course resulted in estimated meter readings being lower than what was actual consumption, and so of course customers were surprised when they got that information.

"We want to apologize to all those customers obviously because it was our mistake."

B.C. Hydro has since added more meter readers to the Squamish and Whistler areas to ensure that there won’t be any problems in the future Moreno says. In the meantime, customers that have trouble paying the larger bill are asked to call B.C. Hydro, which will set up an instalment plan "so you don’t have to feel the impact of a higher bill right away," said Moreno.

Moreno said that the circumstances were exceptional, and that B.C. Hydro does not make a practice of estimating meter readings.

"We have heard from some customers in Squamish and Whistler saying ‘hey, what’s going on’ and we’ve apprised them of the situation, and they’ve been okay with everything that’s going on."

Mark Veerkamp, the executive director of the B.C. Citizens for Public Power, said he is looking into the problem.

While he says you can’t directly blame the recent privatization of the customer service arm of B.C. Hydro on the underbilling problem, he says this kind of thing never happened, to his knowledge, when B.C. Hydro managed its own service department.

"I’ve gotten some calls from around the province from people that have been having problems with their billing, which is something we certainly didn’t see before Accenture took over," said Veerkamp.

In addition to Whistler and Squamish, he is looking into similar reports from northern B.C. and the Gulf Islands.

Citizens for Public Power was created to battle any attempt to actively privatize hydro generation or delivery in the province. In February of 2003, B.C. Hydro and Accenture, a private company that is headquartered in Bermuda, signed a $1 billion service delivery contract that saw Accenture take over customer service, information technology, financial, procurement and building and office management services for the utility. The move was expected to save the Crown corporation about $250 million over 10 years once the transition is complete.

"These reports are certainly alarming, seeing as how we’ve transferred this over to Accenture, who was supposed to be improving the system," said Veerkamp. "Now we’re hearing of bill problems that we didn’t hear previously… we’re hearing that employees have been shuffled around from one department to another, or they’ve been laid off in some cases."

Moreno says that meter reading has always been a challenge in the Sea to Sky corridor, with the weather and sometimes inaccessible meters. With more staff in the area, however, she says it is unlikely that B.C. Hydro will be forced to make estimates again.