Props for Atlantic City Electric

The concept of that post title is admittedly something rare for me—giving credit to a mega-corporation, but never let it be said that I don't give credit when credit is due.

I received my monthly electric bill the other day and I was shocked (pun intended, of course) to find I was being billed for more than 3x the normal amount.

My first instinct was to write the check anyway. I've started using a small electric heater (only as necessary) in the one room where I spend 90% of my time (I figure, Why heat the whole house when one room will do?), so at first I just assumed that might account for the increase, that maybe it used much more power than I realized. Plus with the short winter days the lights are on longer (although I generally shut off those I'm not using them).

The more I thought about it, though, the more I began to question how those couple of changes could possibly account for all the (alleged) extra juice consumed. Certainly the extra use of lights wouldn't do it because I checked back on bills from last winter and they were not outrageous, so that left the heater as the only explanation and I just wasn't buying that.

I then had a brilliant idea, even if I do say so myself... I took my camera outside (9:30 at night in the freezing cold with a more-than-brisk wind) and took a picture of my electric meter...



Then I returned inside to Google "how to read your electric meter" and discovered exactly that. There are several good links there that all agree on how to read my particular type of electric meter (apparently there are digital ones these days, which would seem to be ideal). It didn't seem too difficult to figure out my own reading and I was easily able to come up with 47596.

Three days prior the electric company somehow came up with a reading of 48524, about a 1000 kilowatt hours too much. The bill states the meter readings for early November and early December are "actual." Apparently they are permitted in certain instances to use an estimate when a meter cannot be read for some reason (presumably cases such as construction barring the way, a fenced off area, vicious-looking dog, extremely bad weather, whatever). But there should have been no reason my meter could not have been read on the dates specified and besides, as I already mentioned, the meter readings were explicitly listed as "actual."

Now I don't know the precise procedure when they read a meter and report it. I would think that the system would be somewhat computerized such that the guy who comes around once a month to read it (and I occasionally do see the guy around doing that, though I never watched him closely) would just enter the value he reads into a computer or electronic device of some kind. If that's the case then I would think the problem originated with the actual meter reading (or the guy's input) right from the start. However, if he just records it, say, with pen and paper, then that leaves room for error somewhere else along the information chain when the paperwork gets handed off and it's someone else's job to interpret the numbers as written (though possibly scribbled illegibly) and then enter them into a customer database (possibly hitting a wrong key).

Of course, really that's all neither here nor there as they say. It's just that my mind works such that I usually like to figure out why or how something happened. The bottom line, though, is that mistakes happen in life and that's understood. I certainly make my own share of'em. And I really don't mind so much when a mistake is made so long as it gets noticed (by either party) and corrected in a reasonably timely manner.

I called Atlantic City Electric to find out what would have to be done to resolve the issue. I'll be honest—when I call mega-corporations, especially with a complaint or serious issue, I pretty much dread it because I expect all sorts of aggravations, from those endless menu-driven automated customer (non-)service systems, to simply not being believed and then treated as if I'm trying to get away with something. We've probably all been there.

The menu-driven system answered the call (no way around that!) and they give you a few selections for the nature of why you're calling. I chose "billing" and then got another menu listing options which mostly all amounted to the usual "How can we take more of your money faster...", none of which fit my circumstances. I didn't know what to do and was prepared to try hitting "0" to see if that would get me to an operator or service rep when the menu repeated. I listened again to make sure I hadn't missed anything relevant (I didn't), but this time when it finished it mentioned that I could say "representative" to, you know, speak to one. That's what I did.

After a short wait (only about a minute when the system said it would be two) a rep came on the line and asked how she could help me. She seemed like the typical kind of rep you get at these corporations in that the only way she could have sounded any more disinterested would be if I actually heard snoring coming across the line. But OK, that's a minor quibble. To be fair, I don't know that she really was disinterested because she ended up being very helpful, but her manner just did not reflect the warmest of personalities. (Admittedly I may not have much room to talk in that department myself at times and everyone has bad days.)

I explained that I believed I was overcharged, that the meter was misread (or at least mis-reported). She said that if I believed that was so then they could send someone out to re-read the meter. Then I told her that actually I knew it was so and explained that I read the meter myself by taking a photo and looking up online how to read it. I didn't tell her, but I even corroborated my interpretation by emailing the photo to friends along with the Google page of links explaining how to read electric meters (in case they, like me, didn't already know). The responses I got verified my own interpretation exactly and I hadn't even told anyone what value I thought it should be or even what the electric company was claiming. I wanted folks to come up with their own intepretation completely independently.

I also told the representative that she could pull up my account history for the past year and see for herself that the current bill was way out of line from normal. (I don't actually know if she did that, though.)

After I told her I knew the meter reading on the bill was wrong because I had just read the meter for myself the night before, she asked me what value I got. I told her and she said they'd send a new bill out. That really surprised me. I hesitated and then said something like, "You will?" "Yes, sir." I just assumed that they wouldn't believe me because large corporations NEVER seem to believe that a customer could possibly know what he's talking about. I even questioned again, "You'll just send out a new bill using the meter value I just gave you?" Again, "Yes, sir." "Great!"

And thus my current props for Atlantic City Electric. Of course, I haven't actually received the new bill yet, so there's still a chance that it could be messed up too, possibly even more so, but I'm very hopeful that it will be OK.