NIPSCO overcharged 3,500 natural gas customers, newly unsealed records show
INDIANAPOLIS (WPTA) — Newly unsealed records show NIPSCO admitted to overcharging more than 3,500 natural gas customers — billing them double their actual usage — and did not inform state regulators about the problem for nearly a year.
Regulators kept in the dark for months
Robert C. Sears, NIPSCO’s Director of Regulatory Policy and Demand Side Management, testified before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission that the company discovered the billing error in October 2024 while installing new smart meters.
Sears said old mechanical meters had been installed incorrectly, so the meter indexes were not rotating at the correct drive rate. That meant 3,542 customers were double-billed and 317 customers were billed at half their true usage.
NIPSCO did not notify the IURC of the problem until September 2025. The regulatory body held a hearing in November, and 21Alive was the first to report on the discrepancies in early December.
BACKGROUND: NIPSCO under investigation for gas billing discrepancies | State regulators continue NIPSCO gas meter investigation
Refunds issued; under-charged customers will not owe back payments
Sers said NIPSCO has refunded customers who were overcharged by crediting them for 50% of gas usage charges for a 12-month period leading up to when the error was discovered.
In total, NIPSCO credited $1,404,014 to accounts that had been overcharged.
As for customers who were undercharged, NIPSCO said it will not ask those customers to pay up.
The utility sent letters to customers who were impacted by the issues, informing them of their bill credits, or why their bill suddenly doubled.
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The utility said less than one percent of its customers were affected, and the issue was not limited to a single geographic area. The company is working on installing some 870,000 smart meters across Northern Indiana.
Company defends customer communications
During his testimony to the IURC, Sears said NIPSCO didn’t know the extent of the billing issues at first, which is why the utility hesitated to tell all customers about the problem.
NIPSCO explained the billing discrepancies to impacted customers through letters, email, and a website posting. Sears said the utility’s focus was on those impacted customers, but NIPSCO quickly realized that there were metering issues in areas across its service territory.
NIPSCO ended up sending letters to all customers, informing them whether they had been impacted.
The IURC is scheduled to hold a hearing in the investigation in July, with both NIPSCO and the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor calling witnesses and presenting testimony to regulators.
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