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PrintHelp Me Hank: High Electric Bills
Let’s say Daniel Lynch turned on his bedroom TV, the one in the study, and the one in the living room, and left them on for an entire month. How much do you think his electric bill would be? Now lets say he also turned on all the lights in his two bedroom apartment, and then added the microwave, the refrigerator, the computer, the printer, the dust-buster and the hairdryer?
Now how much would the bill be? Several hundred dollars, right?
That’s why Daniel, who's so good about keeping things turned off that his usual power bill is just $70 a month, was pretty darned surprised when his next electric bill arrived. Look how much it was!
"$12,704.69."Daniel Lynch
It says so in black and white. Please pay $12,704.69.
"What did you think when you saw that?"Hank Phillippi Ryan
Daniel Lynch
"I just laughed I didn't even get upset."
He laughed all the way to the phone, where he called NSTAR to complain.
"They said, ‘Oh, I can’t help you, I can transfer you to somebody else, but I can't help you."Daniel Lynch
Now in case you're counting kilowatt-hours, Daniel was charged for 95,000 of them! Experts told me that would light up the entire city of Chelsea!
But back to the phone where the meter monitors were still not being helpful.
"I was on hold and transferred and I never got any satisfying answers. That’s why I called you."Daniel Lynch
So down from the top of the Pru tower, the NSTAR spokesman Mike Monahan.
How did this happen?"Hank Phillippi Ryan
"
Mike Monahan, NSTAR
"It was just an error. There’s nothing more than I can say about it than it was an error."
Monahan says the bombshell bill was part Daniel's defective meter, part computer glitch, and part clerical mistake.
"Why was the bill still sent?"Hank Phillippi Ryan
Mike Monahan
"It was something that should have been caught, and it wasn’t."
"So you're gonna fix this?"Hank Phillippi Ryan
Mike Monahan
"Yes. That is fixed."
NSTAR admits there have been some problems with customer service. They assure us they're working on it.