Posted on 11/14/2004 8:52:39 AM PST by Willie Green
THE ISSUE
Soon after the city of Monroe installed an automated electricity meter at JB's Midway Barbecue in April, the city's utility department notified owner Jim Benton the restaurant was using much more power than the old meter indicated.
First, his power bill increased from between $800 and $900 to $1,200 a month, Benton said. Then, he received a letter from the city informing him that a city analysis showed his old meter had been under-registering for almost a decade.
He would be billed almost $11,000 -- three years' worth of back charges.
Benton learned that a city policy allows Monroe's energy services department to back-charge up to three years if officials discover a meter has under-registered, even if a city utility worker caused the problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at charlotte.com ...
Not to mention they probably have a walk-in size freezer, coolers, refrigeration, and they run a bunch of other motors for heat/AC. Some friends of mine own a small bar & grill in west TN, a $1200 utility bill is pretty normal for them. And our utilities here are some of the lowest in the nation.
Absolutely brilliant point!
I would expect my attorney, when it came to court to ask as a first question of the city: "Would you please tell the court, in the last ten years, how many customers have been contacted because they have been overpaying?"
The jury verdict would be predetermined, since I know the answer.
Wow! Gas Stations could have a field day with this ditty!
Yes they could.
It's a good arguement for paying anonymously with cash rather than leaving a credit-card paper trail.
Not a chance!
Private companies can't even try this scam.
It could mean that I have a Billon Dollar Business no biggie!
Sorry but some reasonability in business between the buyer and seller are not symmetrical… this is no dif then myself as a service provider under bidding or under estimate my costs I eat it in my profit
The utility co was reasonability to bill correctly the buyer was consuming the utility co produce in good faith that was there cost to them
Bottom line two for profit business’s JB's Midway Barbecue & The utility co
The business that screwed up eats the cost and takes the loss
As for your power bill going up to cover this well why should my BBQ bill go to cover this?
The only factor in paying this bill is the profit margin of the business. If the broke the rest is sophistry.
I guess Compassionate Conservatism is out then.
You need to be at the State Department.
I once got an $11,000 bill. No lie! I was in Chicago in a studio apartment and Com Ed sent me some outrageous number for a bill. The only thing you can do is laugh it off. Occasionally, I still break it out and show it to friends.
That's the way it goes. The power utility installed new meters here and a lot of customers were suddenly behind various amounts. $200 in my case. You can't fight that and you really shouldn't if it is fair. This is fair.
Gasoline pumps are checked for volumetric delivery regularly by the DOT, and in all my years I have never heard of any one getting a refund or being asked to cough up a little extra. I can remember hand pumping gas into a glass bowl and reading the volume, just like a measuring cup. The Gasoline the flowed into you tank by gravity, courtesy of your muscle power used to pump it into the bowl.
As an aside anyone here care to hazard a guess as to how many times your electric bill is estimated rather than actually being read from the meter?
"Pay the bill. Why should the rest of the customers supplement his power use?"
Because it is very unlikely that the folks who performed the analysis are any swifter than the folks who installed/read the meter incorrectly so that it didn't work properly. There is no way to tell if anyone supplemented anyone else.
Of course, he'll probably have to pay most of that to prove his case, so he should probably just offer to settle for some lesser amount if the city doesn't immediately roll over.
Sounds like the time I got a $4500.00 bill for the licence plate renewal on a 1981 Ford Escort.
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