Multiple power bills cause `nightmare'

In five weeks, five power bills have arrived at a Dunedin woman's house, all for the same period and none for the same amount.

"It's giving me an absolute nightmare," householder Margaret McCarrigan said. "It's the biggest mucky mess I've ever come across."

Mrs McCarrigan contacted the Otago Daily Times on Monday after an article in Saturday's paper about a dairy owner's problems with Auckland-based power company Empower.

"You've opened a real can of worms because I reckon most people on Empower are in similar situations," she said.

Mrs McCarrigan said that, like many small business owners targeted by the company, she changed to Empower in January last year for the hotels she owns and her house supply.

All went well until October but, between then and late March, she did not receive a power bill and no money was debited from her account.

However, between late March and mid-April, she received five bills for the period since October, for $1100, $1600, $300, $1200 and then $618.

She contacted Empower 15 times, normally waiting 20 to 30 minutes for her call to be answered, to try to find out which was the real bill and how much she should pay.

Each time, the operator promised to find out what had happened "but no-one ever has been able to". Finally, she agreed with one of the telephone operators to pay $498, the amount she calculated she owed based on previous bills. "But I really don't think she knew anything. I think she was only too pleased to get rid of me."

Mrs McCarrigan said she was worried about the next bill.

"There's only X amount of hours in a day to do all this. It's so time-consuming."

She had not yet started to sort out the hotel's bills and was "cringing" at the thought of it.

Empower was bought by Contact last year. Contact spokesman Blair McLaren acknowledged the problem, but said it had been sorted out.

As each new bill came out, the old ones had been revoked, he said. The company considered Mrs McCarrigan's payment of $498 as full payment of the amount owing.

Wednesday, 2-May 2001

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 02, 2001