Electric bill surprise

[livinzoo]

I keep my AC on 78. When its colder outside I open the windows. I usually use 1400 Kw a month. This month they said I used 4000 Kw. Ahh. What do I do? This bill is too high. I'm thinking about buying one of those Kill-a-watt things and measuring everything. I haven't added any major electric appliance. The only thing I can think is the air. But I have always kept it on 78 and never had this high of a bill in the 5 years I have owned this house. Any suggestions?

[Mom2Wilmo]

My mom had a similar thing happen a year ago. She called the electric company and they investigated and eventually took the charge off of her bill. They can't make you pay it while they are investigeting the charge but it does take awhile and you need to keep calling them. Hope that helps!

[Herausgeber]

what does your meter reading show? sometimes they "estimate" the usage without actually checking your meter, and they are sometimes very wrong.

[becca011906]

Also some time they can miss read it... this happend to my grandparents and thier bill said they needed to pay like $2,000!!! nuts, it could be a typo err to, if someone ment to put a 1 in front of the 4000 and then it would be the 1400... i would defintaly call them!

[livinzoo]

It is a missreading. I went and read it. They wrote a 6 instead of a 4, which made it off by 2000 Kw. I called they said they would send someone by to reread it and they would call me within 72 hours. So now I'm waiting for them to correct the bill. But I feel better that it was read wrong. Thanks

[Satori]

I just had the same thing happen, they misread it. My electric bill is usually about $25 and suddenly it was $95, called them up and the next day they came out and re read it and found the error

[Trishy]

Something similar happened to me with my water bill once. They accidentally put the reading for my neighbor's meter on my spot and my bill was insanely high. I completely freaked out over it. Thankfull we got it all straightened out in a few hours.