Utility hastily tries to explain dubious bills

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Seattle City Light customers protesting sky-high bills have had their meters torn apart and put back together, then been assured there's nothing wrong with them. They have been lectured about conservation and threatened with having their power shut off if they didn't pay up.

Now it's the utility's turn to squirm.

How to dispute your bill · Call 684-3000. A representative will walk you through the bill to see if it's in line with past usage. · If City Light officials can't figure out why a bill is high they will send engineers to check the meter and to ask if customers have added any appliances that use a lot of energy, like a hot tub. · If the bill is still inexplicable, City Light will test the meter. They don't often fail, say City Light officials. · If customers still disagree, they can request an informal conference with a supervisor. If that doesn't prove satisfactory, customers can write a letter to file an appeal within five days. · Customers should state the reason for the appeal and mail it to Seattle City Light, Attn: Hearing Officer, 700 Fifth Ave., Suite 3300, Seattle, WA 98104-5031. · A hearing will be scheduled with hearing officer Javier Valdez, who may check records and have additional work done, such as having the meter read again. He decides whether the bill is valid. · There is no formal appeal beyond Valdez.

Still short on explanations for why a growing number of customers have received bills that are apparently thousands of dollars too high, the utility is scrambling for answers before a City Council hearing next Thursday.

Spokesman Bob Royer said the utility had been so busy trying to square away errant accounts that it hadn't had time to figure out how to identify and repay customers who already paid questionable bills out of ignorance, a sense of futility, or fear.

Some customers who contacted the utility to complain about dubious bills were advised to make a "normal" payment while the utility investigated their bill. But Joanne and Charles Stewart of Capitol Hill are among the customers who say the utility never gave them that option.

Last January, the Stewarts received a bill for $1,715.73, about five times higher than normal. Joanne Stewart said the utility insisted the bill and another questionable one in 2000 were correct, and then sent "threatening" notices to turn off their power. So they paid.

"I'm absolutely positive I overpaid," she said.

In February, Tony Kaufman of Magnolia received a bill for $2,104.65, more than six times higher than he is accustomed to paying. Yesterday, he sued City Light in King County Superior Court.

Kaufman claims he repeatedly tried to get the utility's attention and failed. Then last month, he received an "urgent notice" that his power would be cut off if he didn't pay the bill.

"They think that because they have a hammer over my head they can get away with it," said Kaufman, who is a private investigator. "They can take it down the road."

The suit, filed by Seattle lawyer Dan Larson, makes room for other potential plaintiffs. It asserts that Kaufman thinks "other people in the Seattle City Light service area have been affected in a similar manner."

Except to re-emphasize that Seattle City Light will not shut off the electricity of any customer working with the utility to resolve disputed bills, Royer declined comment on the suit.

Royer and other utility officials said they knew of about 75 cases where ratepayers have complained about excessively high bills. In addition, they have identified 1,300 customers whose bills were generated over a 48-hour period (Jan. 31- Feb. 1), when a software filter used to catch anomalous bills was not working.

The 1,300 were culled by developing another piece of software to extract bills that were double or more what they were in the previous billing cycle. Royer cautioned that such bills could be justified on usage.

It's not clear why the filter was not working, utility officials say. It is clear, they added, that the filter problem would not account for all of the inflated bills, because a number of them were generated when the filter was working.

Scott Koh, manager of Shilla's Restaurant in downtown Seattle, said his power bill normally is $700 to $800 a month. So when he opened his bill in early February he was shocked to see charges of $23,021.27.

"There's got to be a mistake," said Koh, who called City Light weekly to ask about the bill but got no response until an inquiry was made by The Seattle Times.

Royer said it appeared Shilla's was the victim of two bad readings — the meter was either read incorrectly, or there was an error in the software involving the billing program. A letter is going to the restaurant telling Koh that the bill will be around $850.

Similarly, Jean Patton, a Magnolia resident, was shocked to see a $4,800 bill, particularly when she and her husband had been trying to conserve energy. She had a hearing last week before City Light but got nothing more than sympathy, Patton said.

Royer called the Patton situation one of the "mysterious ones."

"The Pattons have done everything in the world in conserving, and it is something highly unusual that occurred," he said, adding that City Light will install a new meter at the home in case it was at fault.

"The Pattons will get complete satisfaction," Royer said.

In some cases, the utility thinks customers may be getting higher bills as part of a "truing up" process to compensate for earlier undercharges caused by bad meter readings or inaccurate estimates.

But when it generates a new, "catch-up" accounting, the utility has billed as if all the consumption occurred during a single billing cycle. That's "like pouring accelerant on a fire," Royer conceded, because of a three-tiered pricing system adopted last summer.

The first tier is 4 cents per kilowatt-hour; the second is 8 cents and the third 16 cents. The highest rate is applied to all consumption exceeding 125 kilowatt-hours a day in the winter and 60 kilowatt-hours in the summer.

Whether the three-tiered system is in need of revision will be on the agenda before City Council member Heidi Wills' Energy and Environmental Policy Committee next week.

Yesterday, in a message posted to her Web site, Wills said, "As our customers have faced unprecedented rate increases during this past year, it is imperative that City Light address questions and concerns about electricity costs adequately and efficiently with sensitivity to the needs of our residents."

Percill Overby of Lake City, a retired schoolteacher, didn't think he was treated courteously when he called to complain about a $1,641.17 bill he received in February. "When we called Seattle City Light we got lectured to pull down the blinds — just ridiculous stuff," he recalled.

In a similar vein, Wayne Comer yesterday recalled that utility workers visited his Ravenna residence when he was away last month after he complained about a bill that approached $5,000. Without notice, he said, they tore apart his meter, concluded it was working fine and left "a nasty note" telling him to "conserve electricity!!!"