Tentative settlement for PPL billing issues
EYEWITNESS NEWS (WBRE/WYOU) — With the cold weather moving in, no doubt many people in our region are bracing to see what increases they will encounter in their utility bills to keep their homes warm.
For hundreds of thousands of PPL utility customers, last winter proved to be a challenge with ongoing billing issues.
Now there is word of a tentative settlement between PPL and the Public Utility Commission (PUC) to head off problems this winter season.
It means that many customers who were overbilled could see their bills lowered this year.
Dozens of customers contacted the I-Team with stories of big increases in their bills, no bills for months then getting a bill that, in their words, was through the roof.
“The worst thing was, is worrying about getting your power shut off and what really made it bad. You couldn’t get through to anybody,” said business owner Bab Kadluboski.
Kadluboski says last years PPL billing problems were a nightmare. He runs an auto repair shop and towing company, and owns several other buildings in Wilkes-Barre.
“Some of them were quadrupled because I have multiple locations. It was unbelievable. I don’t know how it could have happened,” Kadluboski added.
That’s just one of many questions the PUC wanted answered. Its investigation showed that PPL meter data wasn’t transferring to its customer service operations center which delayed billing.
Also, human error caused incorrect bills to be sent out and more than 40% of calls to PPL went unanswered.
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Kenneth Piper of Wilkes-Barre said he couldn’t get answers.
“Starting at the beginning of the year I was taking notice to changes in my bill. My bill started to rise pretty high. I didn’t know why, you know my consumption hadn’t changed,” Piper said.
Under the proposed settlement with the PUC, PPL will pay a $1,000,000 fine and agrees to absorb more than $16,000,000 to correct billing issues.
Also, the utility will waive $2,300,00 in late fees, will forgo the collection of $1,700,000 from underbilled customers, and PPL will not seek to recover any of those costs in future rate request cases.
State representative Alec Ryncavage says lawmakers will be keeping a close eye on PPL’s future actions.
“We will make sure that the $16 million and costs that PPL is absorbing does not be pushed out to ratepayers 12 months from now and make the case for rate increase,” Ryncavage said.
A PPL spokesperson issued the following statement to the I-Team.
We hope the commission will approve the proposed joint settlement, the elements of which build upon the significant changes we already have made to PPL Electric Utilities processes and systems over the past year to prevent a billing issue like this from happening again. Supporting our customers and continuously improving our service are top priorities.
PPL Electric Utilities Director of Communications Dana Burns
The PUC commissioners have to approve this tentative settlement.
A spokesperson for the PUC did not want to comment as this case is still moving forward.
Below you can find the full settlement proposed to resolve the PPL billing issue.
PUC-IandE-Proposed-PPL-SettlementDownload
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