Bastards had been ripping me off for years.
Same here. The electric bill dropped a lot after they put in the smartmeter. They also respond much faster to power outages during storms since they can map the outage better.
Highway robbery!
Same here!
Three months ago my bill was $145. This month it is $31.57.
My electric meter was inside a locked fence on my back deck.
Now I don’t have to unlock the gate to let them in, and I have an accurate bill.
Then you'll like my story.
Decades ago, when I was still single, I rented an apartment. The apartment had its own electric meter, which I soon found out, did not work. I got a bill every month for $2.75, which was the minimum charge for having electricity.
I ran the air conditioner full blast night and day throughout the summer, even if I did occasionally have to wear a sweater in the house in the summer time.
Unfortunately, the apartment was heated with gas, the gas meter did work. I found a solution however by buying electric space heaters for every room and turned the gas off.
I did this for 2 full years and the electric company never noticed or didn't care that I had no usage at all, ditto for the gas.
The only reason I reluctantly moved was because I got married and needed a bigger place. If I hadn't gotten married and had children, I'd probably still be there.
You could have fixed that by reading your own meter and calling the company. On months that we get “estimated” instead of read we bitch and the bill gets adjusted. Once in a while we have to send a couple of dollars more but we bitch then, too, to be consistent. Most of the time it is way high.