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Miniscule billing error costs Synergy North $26K

Bills for some customers were tallied using a 30-day period instead of 31, which resulted in a small overcharge
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THUNDER BAY An error in the billing system cost some Synergy North customers about 36 cents, but Synergy North will be out-of-pocket about $26,000.

The mistake affected the calculation of bills for a group of customers over several years.

Synergy North self-reported the issue to the Ontario Energy Board in March after seeing that another distributor had experienced a similar problem.

Vice-president Andy Armitage told TBnewswatch the bills were tallied using a 30-day period instead of 31, which "created a small error in the amount of a fixed charge that was applied  to a subset of customers."

The miscalculation involved a total of about 47,000 residential invoices that were issued over four years.

To put this in context, Synergy North would have issued over 2.5 million invoices during that period.

Armitage said this kind of mistake is extremely rare, and is one of the first ones he he has seen in his 15 years with the utility.

Under the terms of a voluntary compliance arrangement with the energy board, because many of the affected residents are no longer customers of Synergy North, the utility will contribute $20,000 to the Low-income Energy Assistance Program to help customers in need in its service territory.

This is equivalent to four years of overcharges and equates to 36 cents for each affected customer.

Synergy North will also pay an administrative penalty of $6,000.

"All licensed electricity distributors must be rigorous in applying OEB-approved rates and calculating accurate billing amounts for their customers. Billing accuracy is fundamental to customer trust and the OEB is assured that Synergy North has fixed this billing issue," said Brian Hewson, the board's vice-president, consumer protection and industry performance.

 

 



Gary Rinne

About the Author: Gary Rinne

Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Gary started part-time at Tbnewswatch in 2016 after retiring from the CBC
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