A California resident- Jen Wilson – has received the shock of his life, discovering that he has been paying his neighbour’s electricity bill of for 15 years.
Though he had at some point in the past wondered the high electricity bill, he did not carry out a comprehensive check.
Instead, he decided on curbing his level of consumption as a measure.
Alarm bells began to ring in his head, however, when after buying a device to help track the power use of his appliances, he discovered that his electricity meter continued to run.
That was when it became clear to Wilson, that there was more to the supposed high electricity consumption than he had thought.
He had been a customer of a company called Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E); has been living alone in an apartment complex in Vacaville since 2006.
“Even after I turned off my breakers, I kept going outside to check my meter to see if it was still running and it was still running,” he told ABC News.
The distribution company sent a representative to his apartment after he lodged a complaint, and a reading of the meter showed that Wilson had been paying the electricity bills of his neighbour since 2009, which was three years since he moved in.
“Our preliminary investigation has found the meter number for the customer’s apartment was being billed to another apartment since potentially 2009,” a spokesperson for the utility told ABC News.
Though the error had been tracked, Wilson’s expectation of a quick fix did not materialize. He has to wait to the next billing period for the error to be corrected, the DisCo said.