What to do ! Hydro bill went from 260 to 700 not from us!

Call them and ask?

jacquesstrap wrote: ↑ Call them and ask?

I am but they don’t open till nine. I don’t know what I should tell them to look at..

Someone probably tapped your hydro ... check your meter to see if the readings are correct.

I track my usage monthly and don't have issues.

meter changes are very important, are you using a dumb meter or a smart meter? also your hydro should not be the EXACT SAME every month, your usage varries so will your hydro. do they come and read your meter in person or electronically? if there is a problem with your meter and they can not read it, you will get an ESTIMATED billing, which means they "think" you used that much hydro but when they finally are able to read your meter, and see you used "more" than what they estimated, they will bill you a little extra to make up for it, they are not stealing when they do this as you legit used the hydro. if u have issues with whats going on why not call and ask hydro? who is your hydro company? toronto hydro? hydro one?

Sorry, OP but it appears YOU are the one descending into paranoia. Take it easy and ascertain the facts.

1. What city in BC - is this BC Hydro?
2. Did you have a "smart meter" previously? If not, and given the age of the house, this could be a rather late swap to smart meter or the original smart meter has had its certification expire and needed to be replaced.
3. If the construction around the meter was such that it wasn't completely accessible that is the home builder's fault - that meter must be accessible and removable from the OUTSIDE so it can be serviced.
4. A smart meter swap doesn't cost anything. There should be a note on the bill about old/new meter readings somewhere.
5. If you are paying a set amount every months, then you are on an equal payment plan that will have an annual adjustment date where the difference between ACTUAL usage and currently billed usage will be adjusted. If you used more (or less) than estimated you will have a one-time extra cost/credit on that bill covering the annual adjustment date.
6. If this is BC Hydro, you can go online and look up your electrical usage and every bill for a couple of years at least. Until you DO this and can show where this is some one time unusual usage when the meter was swapped then it could easily be that you simply used more electricity over the year.
7. At $252/mo I presume you have electric heat? That can be a HUGE factor based upon temperature.
8. You say "this isn't the case" that you used more electricity. How do you know? Go online, or call and get your actual used electricity every month - your bill will say - look for something unusual. Even with equal billing plan, every bill will show what was actually used.

No point complaining, making allegations, or thinking you are being ripped-off without even looking at your bills and the metered usage.

How long have you been in this house? Have you been paying a flat $252 every month? If so, perhaps in some months those were estimated charges and now they are "Catching up" as you used more over the course of the past year or whatever?

GoodFellaz wrote: ↑ meter changes are very important, are you using a dumb meter or a smart meter? also your hydro should not be the EXACT SAME every month, your usage varries so will your hydro. do they come and read your meter in person or electronically? if there is a problem with your meter and they can not read it, you will get an ESTIMATED billing, which means they "think" you used that much hydro but when they finally are able to read your meter, and see you used "more" than what they estimated, they will bill you a little extra to make up for it, they are not stealing when they do this as you legit used the hydro. if u have issues with whats going on why not call and ask hydro? who is your hydro company? toronto hydro? hydro one?

Bc hydro.

First thing first, the meter is the utilitie's property. they can, and will change the meter for whatever reason they have to do so. One example is every few years, and this by law, it is required to replace the meter by another. Every electric meters (and gas, and so on) in Canada have a seal. Those seals have an expiration date, and passed the expiration date the meter have to be replaced to be re-calibrated if it ever needs to. Failing to have the meter changed can end up with some issues.

Informations here: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/mc-mc.nsf ... 04708.html and here https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/mc-mc.nsf ... 03961.html

From there. the price difference may be due to:
1- Someone tapped onto your line, and stealing electricity.
2- your meter been changed, and the old one was just inaccurate and measuring less than it was supposed to
3- you changed your habit about electricity usage
4- been mentionned, but few last readings were estimate, and now they have the real reading and it happen you used more than what they estimated
5- possible that if the utility company replaced multiple meters on the same street at the same time your meter is registered at another street address. Look at your invoice, you should find the meter serial # and look if it matches with the one installed
6- unlikely, but you have an inaccurate meter, badly calibrated

Calling the utility company before asking here is, IMHO, the thing to do. Good luck.

for #6 it happened here in Qc. this is a link to "La Facture" TV shwo from Radio-Canada, the French version of Marketplace https://ici.radio-canada.ca/tele/la-fac ... dro-quebec and here's an article on this issue https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/11 ... dro-quebec sorry, all in French

I see nothing unusual swapping out meters that are less than 12 yrs old.

On my street smart meters were first installed around 2009. They swapped mine out Dec 2016 then went door to door summer of 2017 replacing every house. Ours were not even part of the 36,000 recalled smart meters that Ontario swapped out in 2015.

bubuski wrote: ↑ I see nothing usual swapping out meters that are less than 12 yrs old.

On my street smart meters were first installed around 2009. They swapped mine out Dec 2016 then went door to door summer of 2017 replacing every house. Ours were not even part of the 36,000 recalled smart meters that Ontario swapped out in 2015.

and how can one know how old is the meter installed at OP's place to say ''nothing usual''? Utility companies removes hundreds of meters daily, and have them reinstalled elsewhere for some reasons. OP's meter may have been installed 12 years ago, but may bu 25 years old, who knows? Only the utility knows the reason to replace a meter, and knows with how old the ''new'' meter is...

DoorCrasher wrote: ↑ and how can one know how old is the meter installed at OP's place to say ''nothing usual''? Utility companies removes hundreds of meters daily, and have them reinstalled elsewhere for some reasons. OP's meter may have been installed 12 years ago, but may bu 25 years old, who knows? Only the utility knows the reason to replace a meter, and knows with how old the ''new'' meter is...

Obviously a typo when read out of context since my follow up sentence says meters are sometimes replaced twice in the 12 years.

bubuski wrote: ↑ Obviously a typo when read out of context since my follow up sentence says meters are sometimes replaced twice in the 12 years.

gotcha!

If you read the meter, and compare it to your charges or what you're being charged for, what does that tell you?

Im aware bc hydro can basically do what they want.
I called them this morning and a really nice lady was shocked at My bill. She instructed me to read the numbers on the meter. From left to right. And give her the numbers closest to the arrow. When these were given to her, she couldn’t believe that they were charging me something along the line of an extra 9000 watts
She said there’s no reason for it because the history of my bill, everything was fine. She sent the info off to the billing department so they can remedy it. I’m hoping it will be fixed but supposedly it won’t be for the next two weeks..

As for the metre there’s nothing I can do about it. Nobody really knows what to do. It looks completely fine in a sense that it looks just like it does in other houses. So can’t understand why they say they have no access to it when it’s right there beside them. No bushes no trees. It’s been there for about three years now. Every month they get a metre reading. They can put their hands into it because there’s a big gap around it as well.

Someone on here suggested to check the serial number.
I will do that because the teleprompter on the phone said that there were two addresses on my file. So I gave them the correct one. My previous house was 4 years ago. I cancelled that so strange why that is still on my file. I am grateful for the suggestions on hair so I’m looking at everything.

Dejavudiva wrote: ↑ Im aware bc hydro can basically do what they want.
I called them this morning and a really nice lady was shocked at My bill. She instructed me to read the numbers on the meter. From left to right. And give her the numbers closest to the arrow. When these were given to her, she couldn’t believe that they were charging me something along the line of an extra 9000 watts
She said there’s no reason for it because the history of my bill, everything was fine. She sent the info off to the billing department so they can remedy it. I’m hoping it will be fixed but supposedly it won’t be for the next two weeks..

As for the metre there’s nothing I can do about it. Nobody really knows what to do. It looks completely fine in a sense that it looks just like it does in other houses. So can’t understand why they say they have no access to it when it’s right there beside them. No bushes no trees. It’s been there for about three years now. Every month they get a metre reading. They can put their hands into it because there’s a big gap around it as well.

Someone on here suggested to check the serial number.
I will do that because the teleprompter on the phone said that there were two addresses on my file. So I gave them the correct one. My previous house was 4 years ago. I cancelled that so strange why that is still on my file. I am grateful for the suggestions on hair so I’m looking at everything.

It’s not only about the ability to read the dials. Linesmen need to be able to safely access the meter and have a safe working space if they need to do work, pull the meter, etc.

Meter

I don't know the exact reasoning... But this is what happens when you don't change the meter as per their request.
I recall something somewhat similar happened to my parent. They had this old meter that was actually beneficial. It would make hydro bills a lot smaller. Hydro company wanted to change it to a newer style meter that accurately measures the hydro.
If you refuse the change... they estimate billing and it could end up costing more.

Do not underestimate that BC Hydro did not make a mistake on this. I had a rental property and in 1/2 of the duplex, the tenant moved out in March, and she told BC Hydro to turn off the power (BC Hydro admitted that). I and my property manager could not get it rented out, as the rental market was horrible that year (in Port Alberni).

As I lived 5 hours away, I went there in November of that year, to see what renovations I could do, to help rent it out. The power was off, so I told bc hydro to hook it up. They told me they did not turn off the power till September, and I as the owner had to pay for the hydro from March to September. I disagreed with that, but to get the power hooked up I had to pay it.

So I received the first bill in the mail, and it was $2,000 plus. On this bill was a line hook up off around $1,800. I basically freaked, I was so annoyed. I phoned them up, and took them 24 hours plus to get it sorted out and remove that charge. However by this time, I was peeved off about that March-September hydro charge, so I took them to court to get it refunded. The judge agreed with me, and I won easily with their lawyer present. One on the pleasures in life.

These things happen in BC, with these crown corporations, and it is not an uncommon occurrence.

User452441 wrote: ↑ he judge agreed with me, and I won easily with their lawyer present.

I knew someone whose first job out of law school was a lawyer for BC Hydro. Used to travel all over cutting of peoples' power. He must have been good as he became the chief counsel of a large resort corporation.