Massachusetts electric customers shocked by thousands in charges

Electric and gas customers across Massachusetts said they’ve been slammed with surprise utility bills totaling thousands of dollars after Eversource or National Grid failed to bill them regularly for months.Customers received the jumbo bills despite state regulators saying utilities generally don’t have the power to collect charges older than 60 days, if a customer wasn’t billed timely.That state precedent, which dates from 2013, resurfaced this spring after widespread billing problems at National Grid led to thousands of gas customers failing to receive a bill all winter. It’s a good reminder of the protections available to utility customers in Massachusetts.Teresa Lawrence-Coston was shocked when she opened her mail one day last month finding envelope after envelope of Eversource electric bills. They were all issued the same day, March 17, but spanned 10 months of service and totaled $3,300. The company offered no explanation for why she wasn’t billed for almost a year.”I’m like, this can’t be real,” Lawrence-Coston said. “I didn’t receive any cutoff notices. No late status. Nothing. Just one day out of the blue, 10 statements.”Because Lawrence-Coston has solar panels, it’s not uncommon for her to go months in the summer without owing any money. She still pays her bills by mail, so without the paper bill, she wasn’t prompted to make a payment. She doesn’t understand how Eversource let it go so long.”How do (they) reconcile their accounts?” she said. “What are (they) doing over there that they didn’t realize they weren’t invoicing me?”Lawrence-Coston is one of numerous utility customers who reached out to NewsCenter 5 after reports about National Grid failing to bill thousands of gas customers all winter. But as an Eversource electric customer, her story shines a light on others across the state struggling with erratic utility billing.Another Eversource customer got hit with five months of bills on the same day last month totaling $3,200. A shutoff notice followed a few weeks later. A National Grid electric customer was slammed with six months of charges on one bill in February.”People need to be aware of this,” said Brian Pratt, a National Grid customer who couldn’t get the company to send him an electric bill for the better part of a year back in 2022 and 2023. “I had reached out to them via email, via phone, and I got the same run around. ‘Oh, we’re working on it. We’re working on it. It’s backed up.’ And I gave up trying.”Finally, Pratt said two bills showed up back to back — on April 11 and April 12, 2023 — followed by a mega bill three weeks later. That final bill said he owed $1,030 with the only explanation that it was “past due.”“No breakdown, nothing,” Pratt said. “I work in IT. Technology systems break, but we usually fix them pretty quick.”Pratt said it’s not fair to fail to send a bill for 10 months then hit a customer with thousands of dollars in charges.”We want to pay our bills on time. We want to get our bills on time,” he said. “We don’t want surprise bills nine, 10 months later.”“Who do they think they are that they can get away with this?” said Diane Kimball, another National Grid electric customer.She hasn’t gotten a regular bill since last August, despite hounding the company and having a tech come out twice to inspect her meter which she’s told is working fine.”They have a poor billing practice, or there’s something wrong in the company, but they need to correct it,” she said. “I pay my bills. I owe the money. I don’t want my power shut off.”When state regulators cracked down on National Grid for not billing gas customers this winter, the Department of Public Utilities pointed to a 2013 precedent that prohibits utilities from collecting charges older than 60 days if a customer wasn’t billed on time. In its order to National Grid, DPU said “providing customers with accurate, timely, and transparent bills is a fundamental obligation of electric and gas distribution companies.”The order goes on to say that regular bills provide “customers with the frequent, accurate price signals essential to making informed consumption decisions.” A DPU spokesperson confirmed that this 60-day rule applies to customers of every utility in the state who go more than two months without receiving any type of regular bill. To obtain relief, a customer must first contact their utility. If the problem is not remedied, they should file a complaint with the DPU’s consumer division by calling (617) 737-2836 or going to the DPU’s website.Last year, DPU ordered utilities to refund customers $788,119.Pratt said after seeing the coverage of National Grid’s gas billing problems, he pushed the company for a credit from 2023 and is getting back about $1,500. Kimball is also getting old bills waived. Lawrence-Coston said an Eversource customer service rep initially only offered her a payment plan for the 10 months of charges, but the company eventually also waived all but the most recent two months of charges.”They need to be held accountable for their error,” Lawrence-Coston said. “This had nothing to do with me. It was not my fault that their system wasn’t working.”Eversource said the company produces two million customer bills every month and situations like these are rare. The company added in a statement that it was “already working to resolve each of the issues in question” prior to outreach from NewsCenter 5.A National Grid spokesman said “We sincerely apologize to any customers experiencing billing delays and remain focused on resolving any long-term billing issues.”