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Category: Electricity Energy and Utilities

ActewAGL incorrectly bills hundreds of Canberra customers

Wednesday, 7 Sep 2016 10:57:20 | Georgia Hitch

Actew is often confused with ActewAGL, prompting calls for a name change. (ABC News)

ActewAGL have apologised to Canberra customers after admitting hundreds of people had been receiving incorrect bills.

The issue was raised by 666 ABC Canberra's presenter Genevieve Jacobs who said the station was then "deluged" by listeners sharing their experiences and complaints of over and under-billing by the company.

One listener said she had not used her gas heating at all this winter, but still received a bill showing she had a high usage for July based on an estimate of her usage during the same period in 2015.

ActewAGL chief Michael Costello admitted there had been an increase in the number of incorrect bills sent out and apologised for the confusion.

"What's happening is this, meters are being read and any letters going out [saying they aren't] are incorrect and I apologise for that," he told ABC 666 Canberra.

Mr Costello said estimated bills had increased from around 300 a month to 800 after a change in regulation in May.

"They [the meter readings] go into the system and it used to be we had five days for the system to correct and normally it would correct in three days, four days and a proper bill would go out," he said.

"There were still cases where we had to do an estimate where we genuinely couldn't read the meter or someone had been sick, that was about 3 per cent of cases.

"That is not the case now and for a simple reason - the regulator has reduced the time we have available from five days to one."

Communication not the issue: ActewAGL

But Mr Costello denied there had been poor communication between the company and its customers over the issue.

"If people have a problem with their bill they can pick up the phone and ask and we respond," he said.

"If this was 50 per cent or the whole system had fallen over of course we would [accept that there was poor communication].

"But this is a problem that seems to us to be best solved by individuals making contact with us and we can resolve it."

He said since 666 ABC Canberra had broadcast the issue initially yesterday, there had been a jump in the number of people calling to fix their bill, causing a backlog.

"As you can imagine with the increase in the number of individual cases the number of phone calls into 131 886 ... has gone through the roof, particularly after yesterday," Mr Costello said.

He also said that any customer who had been overcharged on their bill would receive a repayment, not a credit to their next bill.

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