Unexpected Expenses

[samhexum]

A Pennsylvania utility customer got the shock of her life after checking on her monthly electric bill and seeing that she owed $284 billion. I hope the company lets you pay in installments.

 

“My eyes just about popped out of my head,” Erie homeowner Mary Horomanski, 58, told the Erie Times-News. “We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong.”

 

Horomanski checked her account statement online in early December and saw that she was being zapped for $284,460,000,000 by Penelec, her electric provider.

 

She was told she had until November 2018 to pay the entire amount. Her first payment for December was only $28,156.

 

After a call from Horomanki’s son, Penelec fixed the statement to show that the actual balance was $284.46, the paper reported.

 

Penelec spokesman Mark Durbin said somehow the decimal point was in the wrong spot.

 

“I can’t recall ever seeing a bill for billions of dollars,” Durbin told the paper. “We appreciate the customer’s willingness to reach out to us about the mistake.”

 

Horomanski told her son she had a better idea for a Christmas gift after she saw the $284 billion bill, according to the paper.

 

“I told him I want a heart monitor,” she said.

[+ FrankR]

A Pennsylvania utility customer got the shock of her life after checking on her monthly electric bill and seeing that she owed $284 billion. I hope the company lets you pay in installments.

 

“My eyes just about popped out of my head,” Erie homeowner Mary Horomanski, 58, told the Erie Times-News. “We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong.”

 

Horomanski checked her account statement online in early December and saw that she was being zapped for $284,460,000,000 by Penelec, her electric provider.

 

She was told she had until November 2018 to pay the entire amount. Her first payment for December was only $28,156.

 

After a call from Horomanki’s son, Penelec fixed the statement to show that the actual balance was $284.46, the paper reported.

 

Penelec spokesman Mark Durbin said somehow the decimal point was in the wrong spot.

 

“I can’t recall ever seeing a bill for billions of dollars,” Durbin told the paper. “We appreciate the customer’s willingness to reach out to us about the mistake.”

 

Horomanski told her son she had a better idea for a Christmas gift after she saw the $284 billion bill, according to the paper.

 

“I told him I want a heart monitor,” she said.

I'll never be able to understand how something like this can happen and then go undetected by the utility. Don't they have accountants on staff? You know, those guys do like doing things like reconciliations and variance analysis, surely.... Utilities are highly regulated by each State, I hope she filed a complaint with the regulator in Harrisburg, as well as the attorney general in PA. Doesn't this come awfully close to the text book definition of mail fraud?!?!

[rvwnsd]

I'll never be able to understand how something like this can happen and then go undetected by the utility. Don't they have accountants on staff? You know, those guys do like doing things like reconciliations and variance analysis, surely....

 

I am sure they do. That’s why many billers send bills a few days after a billing period ends. However, in today’s world we want everything AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, which leaves little or no time for recon and analysis. Alternatively, they could have been eliminated when ratepayers and regulators wanted “overhead” cut.

 

...Utilities are highly regulated by each State, I hope she filed a complaint with the regulator in Harrisburg, as well as the attorney general in PA. Doesn't this come awfully close to the text book definition of mail fraud?!?!

The company made a mistake, acknowledged it upon it being brought to their attention, and corrected it. She could file complaints, but the issue has been resolved. Not sure how much good it would do.

[+ sniper]

There is no human intervention in those bills until someone calls and complains. It was lazy coding by some programmers. There should have been some basic reasonableness checks on the data. I would think she was not the only person to get a bill like that. What probably happened is somebody who was updating the rates assumed the decimal was implied on some rate per killowatt-hour and put in in as whole numbers.

[+ WmClarke]

There is no human intervention in those bills until someone calls and complains. It was lazy coding by some programmers. There should have been some basic reasonableness checks on the data. I would think she was not the only person to get a bill like that. What probably happened is somebody who was updating the rates assumed the decimal was implied on some rate per killowatt-hour and put in in as whole numbers.

Yeah, a simple reasonableness”audit flagging any residential bill over $1000 would catch that very easily. Some very lazy coding, indeed.

[+ FreshFluff]

Yeah, a simple reasonableness”audit flagging any residential bill over $1000 would catch that very easily. Some very lazy coding, indeed.

 

Why would some highly regulated utility care? It's not like its customers will get angry and switch.

[Phil_musc]

Maybe she'll sue them - intentional infliction of emotional distress or some such theory.

[rocky]

I am sure they do. That’s why many billers send bills a few days after a billing period ends. However, in today’s world we want everything AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, which leaves little or no time for recon and analysis. Alternatively, they could have been eliminated when ratepayers and regulators wanted “overhead” cut.

 

 

The company made a mistake, acknowledged it upon it being brought to their attention, and corrected it. She could file complaints, but the issue has been resolved. Not sure how much good it would do.

Sorry as someone who works in the financial business it's not that the company has made a mistake. they don't have an internal control process that sort of looks at any bill that has that many zero's after it. come on. I have to counter sign any payments above $100k that I do every day and no one spotted this???

[rvwnsd]

Sorry as someone who works in the financial business it's not that the company has made a mistake. they don't have an internal control process that sort of looks at any bill that has that many zero's after it. come on. I have to counter sign any payments above $100k that I do every day and no one spotted this???

I didn’t say this was okay, I said it doesn’t warrant a lawsuit or a regulatory complaint. What would the complaint say? ”The utility made an egregious error and corrected it.” And the lawsuit - what would the customer sue for? The cost of the phone call? Typically, lawsuits and regulatory complaints are filed when the company doesn’t correct the mistake.

 

I also work in the financial industry. When a situation like this occurs we create a self-identified issue, engage partners in the Risk Management, Regulatory Affairs, and Compliance departments, determine how the error occurred (what controls were bypassed, what coding errors might have led to the problem, etc) and develop an action plan to ensure it doesn’t occur again. Then someone gets fired. Something tells me there will be a similar process -and a former utility company employee looking for a job in the new year.

[Guy Fawkes]

GIGO

[Phil_musc]

I didn’t say this was okay, I said it doesn’t warrant a lawsuit or a regulatory complaint. What would the complaint say? ”The utility made an egregious error and corrected it.” And the lawsuit - what would the customer sue for? The cost of the phone call? Typically, lawsuits and regulatory complaints are filed when the company doesn’t correct the mistake.

 

I also work in the financial industry. When a situation like this occurs we create a self-identified issue, engage partners in the Risk Management, Regulatory Affairs, and Compliance departments, determine how the error occurred (what controls were bypassed, what coding errors might have led to the problem, etc) and develop an action plan to ensure it doesn’t occur again. Then someone gets fired. Something tells me there will be a similar process -and a former utility company employee looking for a job in the new year.

 

I do hope that you realized that I was kidding when I suggested a legal suit.