Vectren is making customers aware of a billing issue that is beginning to surface in Evansville-area media and social media channels. About 7,000 customers in southwestern Indiana have experienced 2 to 4 consecutive months of estimated reads over the summer. Beginning in August/September – and continuing on through this past week, actual meter readings were obtained – as such, customers are currently experiencing higher-than-normal bills that reflect these actual reads.
Why are the estimated bills higher than normal?
Unfortunately, an issue was discovered where estimated bill amounts were lower than they should have been. As such, when the actual read is occurring, the energy consumption from the hottest months of the year was not accurately accounted for in the estimates from months prior.
Why are there consecutive months of estimates?
Estimated meter readings can occur; often because of weather issues, inability to access the meter or other unforeseen circumstances. However, up to 4 months of consecutive estimates is not common. Vectren began the process of changing meter reading vendors this summer. The prior vendor’s contract expired Aug. 31. Unfortunately, the route completion performance of the prior meter reading contractor suffered as their contract came to an end.
What has Vectren done to communicate with/help customers?
Once the issue was discovered in early September, Vectren put a formal communication plan in place. This included delivering a bill message to all impacted customers and directly calling the approximately 400 customers who would be seeing a bill increase of $250 or more. Vectren apologized to these customers for the inconvenience, as this was no fault of the customer. Vectren is providing options for payment arrangements whereby affected customers can pay any unmanageable amounts in smaller increments over a period of time (with no interest, nor fees).
Please know steps are in place to ensure this won’t be repeated again, including correcting the artificially-low estimated bill calculation and quickly onboarding a new meter reading vendor to minimize the number of estimated reads in the future.
http://www.vectren2.com/evision/statement%20on%20estimated%20bills.pdf
We finally got tired enough of Vectren and had solar installed at our house. Few years of payments and after that, we will only slightly be reliant on Vectren’s services for what small amount of natural gas we use.
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