Discovered TVA was reading the wrong meter for a Huntsville manufacturing client for over two years. They were reading the adjacent property's meter and billing my client for that usage while the actual meter went unread. Client was paying for a beauty salon next door instead of their metal fabrication shop. $89,000 in overbilling. How does this even happen with modern meter reading technology?
TVA meter reading error - they read the wrong meter for 2 years
Albert that's unbelievable but I've seen similar with PPL here in Pennsylvania. They mixed up two adjacent meters and billed a small office for a welding shop's usage for 14 months. The office owner almost went bankrupt before we caught it. Problem is meter technicians don't verify meter-to-account mapping during installations or service changes.
City Utilities of Springfield had a similar mix-up last year. Restaurant was being billed for the auto repair shop next door. The restaurant owner couldn't understand why his electric bill tripled when he switched to LED lighting. Took four site visits before someone actually verified which meter fed which building. These cross-connections are more common than utilities admit.
Exactly Elmer - and TVA's response was "meter reading errors happen." No accountability, no process changes. They eventually refunded the overpayment but no interest compensation. I'm now requiring photos of actual meter serial numbers during all audits. Can't trust their meter-to-account databases anymore.
OG&E mixed up meters on two adjacent warehouses in Oklahoma City - took 18 months to discover. One warehouse was paying for both buildings while the other paid nothing. The billing discrepancy was $45,000. Problem was both accounts were under different subsidiary names so nobody noticed the pattern. Now I always map meter locations during initial site surveys.
AEP Texas had a meter swap error in Corpus Christi - residential customer getting billed for commercial laundromat usage. Bill went from $180/month to $2,400/month overnight. Customer called AEP dozens of times, they kept saying "usage verification shows normal patterns." Finally took a city council complaint to get someone to actually check the meter serial numbers. Basic quality control seems absent.