Just wrapped up a Georgia Power case that started as a routine energy audit but uncovered massive telecom billing fraud. Client was being charged for "managed VoIP services" under a non-existent tariff schedule T-VoIP-3. Georgia Power was billing $3,247/month for services that were never requested or installed. Total recovery was $189,450 covering 58 months of bogus charges. The scary part is how long this went unnoticed.
Georgia Power VoIP billing nightmare - $189K recovery
Rachel, that's incredible but not surprising. I'm seeing similar issues with Santee Cooper here in South Carolina. They've been billing commercial accounts for "unified communications platforms" that don't exist. The billing systems seem to automatically generate telecom charges without any verification of actual service delivery.
George, exactly right about the automatic billing. Georgia Power admitted their system was applying VoIP charges to any account with certain SIC codes, regardless of whether telecom services were actually provided. It's like they assumed every manufacturing facility automatically needed managed phone services.
That's criminal negligence in my opinion. How did you first discover the billing error? Was it during your standard rate analysis or did the client suspect something was wrong?
The client actually called me because their bill suddenly jumped $400/month with no explanation. When I dug into the line items, I found these VoIP charges that had been there for years but got hidden in the detailed billing format. The client never noticed because it was a small percentage of their total $28K monthly bill.
This is why detailed bill auditing is so important, especially on large accounts where phantom charges can hide for years. Rachel, did Georgia Power fight the refund or did they admit the error quickly once you presented evidence?