Just found the strangest error in my 8 years of auditing. Consumers Energy was charging a manufacturing client for street lighting maintenance on a road that doesn't exist anymore. The original street was vacated by the city in 1987 when they built the highway bypass, but somehow the charges kept running for 35 years. Client paid over $180,000 in bogus street light fees since the road was literally torn up and turned into a field. Anyone top that for weird utility charges?
Weirdest billing error you've ever found?
Tina, that's insane! I thought I found a weird one when PNM was charging a hotel for irrigation water service at a property that has been completely paved for parking for 15 years. Turned out to be a $23,000 error over 4 years but your phantom street lighting beats that easily. Did Consumers Energy actually refund the full amount or did they fight it?
I had Duquesne Light billing a client for a second electric meter that was supposedly installed in 2018 but the meter number belonged to an account 200 miles away in Ohio. Someone fat-fingered a data entry and created a phantom meter with someone else's readings. Took 6 months to get them to admit the meter didn't exist and stop the $400/month charges. The account history showed the mystery meter had "readings" every month right on schedule.
Here's a good one - Madison Gas & Electric was charging a restaurant for natural gas service to heat a swimming pool. The property has never had a pool and is located on the second floor of a downtown building. The charges went back 8 years for about $1,200/month in pool heating that was physically impossible. Turns out their billing system merged two accounts during a system upgrade and created this hybrid monster account.
Susan, the phantom pool charges are hilarious! Idaho Power once billed a client for electricity to run ski lift equipment at a location that's 300 feet above sea level in desert terrain. The account showed seasonal usage patterns that perfectly matched the local ski resort 50 miles away in the mountains. Someone obviously crossed wires during account setup but it took a site visit to convince them that sand dunes don't need ski lifts.
Alabama Power charged a warehouse for residential rate schedule A-1 instead of commercial rate LGS for 3 years. That's not the weird part though - the weird part is they were also billing the same meter under a completely different account number on the correct commercial rate. So the client was paying twice for the same electricity, once as a fake residential customer and once as the actual business. Total overpayment was $67,000 and nobody at Alabama Power could explain how it happened.
Eversource was charging a small office building for electric vehicle charging stations that were supposedly installed in the parking lot. The building is 80 years old and has 6 parking spaces, none with electrical service. The EV charging fees were $800/month for "fast charging infrastructure" that didn't exist. Best part was when I asked for photos of the charging stations and they sent pictures of equipment at a completely different address 20 miles away.
Update on my phantom street lighting case - Consumers Energy actually refunded the full $180,000 plus interest! Took 8 months of back and forth but they finally admitted the error. The best part was when their field supervisor went to inspect the "street lights" and found a cornfield. Apparently this happens more often than they want to admit when municipalities change road configurations but don't notify the utility properly.
SMUD once charged a client for powering a cell phone tower that was removed 5 years earlier after a storm. The tower company went out of business but somehow the electrical service kept running with usage that matched their old patterns exactly. Turned out SMUD was using estimated billing based on historical usage and nobody ever verified the equipment was still there. $45,000 in charges for electricity going to empty air.
Eugene Water & Electric charged a pizza restaurant for water service to fill a decorative fountain that was removed during remodeling in 2019. The fountain had its own meter and rate code for decorative water features. Three years later they were still billing monthly for fountain water usage based on "seasonal adjustment factors" even though the fountain was gone and the meter was disconnected. Only caught it because the usage spiked during summer months when fountains supposedly use more water.
These stories are crazy but also kind of scary. Makes you wonder how many phantom charges are out there that nobody has caught yet. PNM recently admitted they found over 3,000 accounts statewide with "data integrity issues" after a system audit, but they won't say what that means or if they're proactively refunding customers. Probably a lot of billing errors just fly under the radar forever.
Marcus makes a good point about hidden errors. I bet every utility has thousands of these phantom charges running in their systems. The scary part is that most businesses just pay their bills without questioning unusual charges, especially if they've been consistent for years. We only catch the really obvious ones or the ones that suddenly change and trigger attention.
This thread is both hilarious and terrifying from a utility perspective. I've seen some doozies with MLGW over the years but nothing quite this creative. The phantom street lighting for a non-existent road is probably the winner - 35 years of billing for lights on a road that became a field! Makes me wonder what other legacy charges are buried in utility billing systems that nobody questions because they've "always been there." Great catches everyone!
Thanks Randy! The Consumers Energy case definitely opened my eyes to how these legacy errors can persist for decades. Now I'm much more suspicious of any charges that seem oddly consistent over long periods. Sometimes the "normal" looking bills hide the biggest errors because nobody thinks to question them. This thread should be required reading for anyone new to utility auditing!