Eversource formerly Western Mass Electric Company overvharge, defective meter, double charging, electric bill rip-off, overcharged for years Nationwide

Our electric bills have steadily increased over the last few years, and we attributed the increase to having older appliances in our home, as well as rate increases by the utility company. We do NOT have electric heat. In 2015, we paid $5,024.92 in total to Eversource, for an average monthly bill of $418.74. Nationwide, the average utility bill is $246.26

On March 22, 2016, an Eversource technician replaced our old meter (meter # 963065522) with a new meter (meter # 894776552). The following bill, dated May 2, 2016, for the first full month with the new meter was $144.32 and the total KW usage was 765 vs. $474.27 and KW usage of 1575 for the month before. The new charges are less than half of the prior bills, with no changes to our electric usage or different appliances within our house.

My husband called the Eversource customer service line on Friday, May 6, 2016 and spoke to Holly at extension 2007. She was surprised that their records indicated that our meter had not been replaced after a neighborhood lightning strike in 2007 that resulted in a DVD player in our house being destroyed. She said they would try to locate the old meter that was removed on 3/22/16 and test it to see if it was defective and whether it resulted in us being double-charged for electricity since 2007. She had him read the meter for a four day period and confirmed that the reading was less than half of previous readings with the old meter for a comparable time period. She conferred with her supervisor and promised to call back on Monday, 5/9/16. To date, we have not received any calls or updates.

I sent a letter to the Consumer Division of the Department of Public Utilities in Boston, and called after 3 weeks to follow-up. The investigator assigned to the case indicated that there was nothing amiss, and was uninformed about the situation and obviously had not even read my letter. He called after a few days to state that he called Eversource and they played the taped phone call of May 6 and there was nothing on there about a lightning strike or replacing the meter in 2007. They also cannot find the old meter to test it. He said there was nothing that could be done from a regulatory standpoint.

Very strange that in a situation where Eversource overcharged us to the tune of $15,000 to $20,000 that a very incriminating part of the original tape is “missing”, or that the defective meter is nowhere to be found.

Neither Eversource or the DPU has any explanation as to why our electric bill and usage dropped in half after the new meter was replaced. Based on the new meter readings, it is pretty obvious that we have been overcharged by more than twice as much as we should have, probably since 2007. First Western Mass Electric Company (WMECO) and now Eversource are responsible for maintaining accurate meter equipment, which they did not do. They owe us a considerable amount of money in excessive charges as a result of their faulty equipment.