SAN ANTONIO – A contractor for CPS Energy has fired two meter readers for making up meter readings for customers from around the city.
CPS Energy spokeswoman Christine Patmon said thousands of customers were potentially affected by those readings.
The Defenders were first made aware of unusual energy bills by residents in Castle Hills.
Pam Grunwald knew something was wrong on her June CPS Energy bill.
Electric readings had been low for months and then it shot up.
She said the gas usage on the bill was ridiculously high.
"They said I spent $235.91 this month," Grunwald said. "On a water heater."
She had a guess about what had happened.
"They had not been charging me the whole year and they're playing catchup just in one month," Grunwald said.
Then she began talking to other people in her quiet neighborhood.
It turns out that other bills showed the same pattern: low readings for months and then a big spike.
"It was a huge spike," said neighbor Michael Ann Coker.
She saw it and noted that she never saw anyone reading her meter.
"Mine's out on the side door and I think I would have noticed and I'm home most of the time," Coker said.
The Defenders asked CPS Energy to investigate these abnormal bills and it took the agency two weeks to respond.
"We discovered that we had four contract meter readers that were terminated by our contractor," Patmon said. "They were terminated for falsely reading meters. They were terminated for basically guesstimating."
She said they had been working for about five months.
"We don't believe that they were doing it all the time but they did it often enough that it showed to be a pattern," Patmon said. "It was serious. They were guesstimating meter reads and that impacts our customers budgets so it's robbery by another means and it's unacceptable."
She said the four worked all over the city and she apologized to customers who were affected.
"We do apologize to them because this is not something we would ever intend for them to experience," Patmon said.
She also praised the contractor for doing the right thing in firing the employees.
The huge bills, she said, were the result of the meters actually being read, so in those cases no one was billed for gas or electric they did not use.
However, CPS Energy is offering payment plans for those who want them.
In other cases, where customers may have been charged more than they should, the company is offering refunds.