Duke customer pays wrong utility bills for years

Well, new at five, we've all opened up our electric bill and thought there is no way I use this much power. But for one Largo senior on a fixed income, the nightmare became a reality. She recently discovered she's been paying somebody else's utility bill for years. Let's bring in FOX 13's Ariel Plasencia, who joins us in studio. Yeah, Ariel, what did the homeowner tell you? Well, you know, you said it. It's been years. And so she is definitely frustrated and certainly angry over how this all went down. And she did everything she could to try to figure out what was going on. Why were these high bills? And she felt like she just didn't get the support or the help that she needed from the utility company. And ladies, it got so bad that she told me that at one point she even thought about selling her house. This is crazy, there was just no explanation. For the last 57 months, Janice Dahl has been baffled by her utility bill. There was just no way her 1500 square foot Largo house was using that much power. We even called Duke for an energy audit and they came out and said everything looks great. Well, obviously it didn't because then we got a $600 bill the next month. She says Duke Energy told her that her meter was working just fine, that it must be something on her end. So she had an electrician come out several times, but the high bills just kept coming. So she replaced the AC, pool pump, washer, dryer, microwave, and garage refrigerator. In total, some $15,000 in upgrades, all to try and make her home run more efficiently. Instead, her monthly bills skyrocketed. September 14th, it was my birthday of all days. I opened a bill and it was $970 and I was just distraught. $970 and that came when Janice had been out of town for basically the entire month. She finally got somebody with Duke Energy to come out. She says he discovered the number on her meter didn't match the number on her bill. I followed him immediately. I said, what do you mean? And he said, I'm not quite sure. I've never seen this before. Give me a few minutes. So I waited anxiously and he finally came back and he said, And yet somehow your meter has been mixed up with someone else's. That someone else is a home about three times the size of hers, Janice tells me, six miles away on Treasure Island. And then, of course, thinking, I've been paying their bill. Am I going to get my money back? That's a lot of money. I'm retired. I'm on a fixed income. That is a lot of money. And Janice says that Duke Energy has since apologized and they admitted they did overbill her to the tune of nearly $11,000. And two weeks ago, she did get a refund check for just under that amount. And then I did talk to Duke Energy today. And in a statement, they again apologized for the inconvenience, saying, quote, that our customers only pay for the energy that they use. So after something like this is discovered, we worked. quickly to correct it. That is good news. I'm sure that that check felt good. How did this happen? So I was I asked Janice that and she said that she found out that her home and the Treasure Island home apparently she said they both got new meters installed within one day of each other back in January of 2022. And so her advice is to make sure that you look at the meter number on your actual meter and then also the number on your actual bill and make sure that So that they're the same. So probably an honest mistake, but still. Yeah, she deserved that $11,000 back. That's excellent. Thank you.