AssociatesWe pride ourselves on our ability to replicate any utility’s bill to the penny, no matter how complicated their billing system. And since we run all our clients’ accounts through a bill validation process, we discovered that charges on some of this client’s accounts didn’t match the rates and tariffs that their Northern California investor-owned utility had filed with the PUC. We had in fact uncovered a mis-applied supplemental cost, hidden in a line item, which should not have applied to our client.
Our repeated inquiries with the utility to resolve the issue produced the same result: all utility representatives claimed that the bills were correct. We even got to an internal billing specialist (to whom persons outside the utility are not supposed to get access to) who said, “What you’re claiming cannot happen with our computer. Your client is not getting that charge.”
Undaunted, we pushed into deeper layers of the utility’s management until we reached someone who understood our argument that the utility’s computers indeed had a programming glitch. We got the utility to refund the overcharges, returning $55,000 to our client. And our client now enjoys the benefit of reduced charges on those accounts to the tune of $57,000 annually.
The landlord had mis-applied a CPI adjustment, and the result was an overcharge to our client. The overcharge was further compounded over time as each year’s additional adjustment was based on the prior year’s ‘inflated’ rent charge. We identified the error and negotiated with the landlord until every overcharged dollar was returned, with interest. The relationship with the landlord was kept in good standing.
When we audited this client’s bills, the local municipal water district had recently instituted tier-based pricing for commercial water consumers.
We determined that the base allotment provided for this large water user was not sufficient to meet its needs, and successfully petitioned the district for a larger base amount.