Utility companies and bill "estimations."

Reality's Fringe

Reality's Fringe

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This is the first time I've lived in a rental property (college) where I have to pay my own utilities. Over the past two months, my heating bill has been about $34 a month as my heat has been off and the only other thing that uses gas is my water heater. Well, I got my bill today and(without changing ANY of my usage patterns, my heat is still off) it was "estimated" at $180. I was unaware that companies were allowed to do this. If you went to the store to buy milk and had the clerk "estimate" your purchase to be $90 because the guy in front of you spent $160 on food you'd probably hit him in the face. It seems a rather dubious practice, and the only reason I really noticed it was "estimated" was because the bill was such an anomaly. Makes me wonder how many 1st time utility payers are overpaying because they don't know their charges are essentially a crap-shoot by the company. I suppose it's easier to guess than to read the meter every month, but that's their administrative responsibility and should be included in the cost of their product. The electric company seems to do a decent job of keeping track of my consumption, so I wonder what about the delivery system makes it hard to track on their end.

Then again, maybe I'm just an idiot and everyone knows their bill is estimated at certain intervals. I'm learnins a lot on my own.
 
I think you should eventually get credited back if your real usage is less than what they estimated out the charge? And on the flip side you'd be charged extra to make up the shortfall if you really use more. I'd call them and ask.
 
[quote name='wubb']I think you should eventually get credited back if your real usage is less than what they estimated out the charge? And on the flip side you'd be charged extra to make up the shortfall if you really use more. I'd call them and ask.[/QUOTE]

I called and told them to come out and read the meter, but now I have to wait until 3 days before the payment is due to get it read, then call back for my new balance, then make the payment. I know they can credit the balance back, but what if I don't have $180 to blow on an incorrect charge? My budget is tightly monitored, and 6x my normal amount would definitely hurt. Additionally, I'm used to living in a freezing ass cold room, so I doubt my thermostat will get set higher than 55 degrees max this winter. I'm just still wondering how they can just guess your bill.
 
In my experience when actually paying a gas bill (it's included in my rent now), they estimate every other month. So if you paid their estimate of $180 this month, and next month it turns out you only used $50 worth of gas, they'd probably either credit you back $130 - whatever your next month usage was, or just hang onto that money and pay off your future balances with it. But usually it's close enough that your payment is pretty consistent month-to-month.

One has to imagine that whoever lived in that property before you was really shitty managing their utilities, since they may be using historical data. Either that or whatever they use to estimate is way off.

I had some issue with our gas company back when I was in grad school (it was either a similarly ridiculous estimation or an incorrectly-read meter), quite frankly don't know how it was resolved, but we had to mosey on down to the meter room under the building and check things out with the meter guy.
 
Reality's Fringe;3630415 said:
I called and told them to come out and read the meter, but now I have to wait until 3 days before the payment is due to get it read, then call back for my new balance, then make the payment.
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Call up and say you smell a gas leak. They'll send a guy over ASAP. Then when he gets there tell him you were just fooling and since he's already there he may as well read the meter.
 
[quote name='BadAdviceGuy']Call up and say you smell a gas leak. They'll send a guy over ASAP. Then when he gets there tell him you were just fooling and since he's already there he may as well read the meter.[/quote]I was hoping for gold when I saw your name, and luckily I was not disappointed.
 
This estimation can work a couple different ways:

1) The company finds is difficult to read your meter so they only read it evey few months and guess about your bill based on past use. If this is the case, they may have been guessing about your cheap bills based on an empty apartment and now you owe them back pay. Either way, they should credit you back if you overpaid after the next time they check (I guess you'll find out what happened in a couple days).

2) My water bill is estimated based on the amount of HOT water I use. The complex was not built with the idea of charging individual apartments so the meters aren't in place to read usage. Instead, they measure hot water usage for each apartment and divide the whole bill (all water used in the building) by way of percentages based on hot water usage. That means if I don't use any hot water and leave my cold water running 24-7, I should not owe anything. So, your gas may be a division of use in the building as well and since other tenents crank up the heat, you have to pay pay pay.

T
 
[quote name='botticus']I was hoping for gold when I saw your name, and luckily I was not disappointed.[/quote]
I'm disappointed... he created that account in early 2006 and that was his first post.

It's a good start I guess...

I've never run across a "bill estimation" before thankfully, as it sounds really crappy.
 
[quote name='yukine']I'm disappointed... he created that account in early 2006 and that was his first post.

It's a good start I guess...
[/quote]Well, yeah, that part was disappointing.
 
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