Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in a brief filed today, called for sustained state monitoring of Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P), fines and other possible remedies because the company has “grossly failed in its public service obligations to ensure that its customers are fairly billed and fairly treated.”
Blumenthal urged the Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) to review CL&P’s customer service operation every six months. He also called for a DPUC review of certain customer’s historical and seasonal usage patterns to resolve persistent doubts about the company’s meter testing practices.
Blumenthal also demanded that the DPUC allow customers to have their meters tested without losing their right to contest their bills, as DPUC regulations currently require.
The DPUC investigative proceeding – prompted by Blumenthal’s request – into CL&P’s alleged persistent overbilling and poor customer service has revealed “systemic and pervasive failures in CL&P’s customer service practices and procedures.”
In the wake of a firestorm of complaints, published reports and investigations, CL&P has adopted new policies and procedures, including more rigorous meter testing. Blumenthal called these measures “important first steps,” but said the CL&P’s systemic failures demand sustained monitoring by the state.
“CL&P has apparently taken a number of steps to improve its responsiveness to customer complaints, but the scale and scope of CL&P’s customer service problems makes it likely that this pattern of misbehavior is deeply ingrained and will take time to correct,” Blumenthal said. “Continued regulatory vigilance is essential if the DPUC is to ensure that CL&P’s new commitment to customer service is genuine and lasting, and not discarded as soon as the DPUC closes its proceeding.
“I am hopeful that CL&P will embrace this request as an opportunity to send a message to its customers that the company takes its public service
obligations seriously and welcomes DPUC scrutiny of its track record. Such ongoing review – and CL&P’s willingness to embrace this review – is the best means to restore the public confidence in their electric company.
“The DPUC cannot leave CL&P to its own devices with regard to this important issue. CL&P’s customer service failures represent systemic failures of CL&P’s corporate culture, not isolated instances of poor customer service. Correcting these systemic failures within the company’s corporate culture will take time, effort and aggressive regulatory oversight.”
Hundreds of CL&P customers have complained about erratic or unexplained spikes in electric bills, faulty meters and overbilling. Blumenthal said the company’s greatest problem has been its reaction and response to customer complaints.
In most complaints, CL&P representatives have insisted meters were correct without testing them and, in many cases, CL&P threatened customers who complained.
Blumenthal said one customer wrongly received a bill for $18,067.11 for a single months usage that was 130 times higher than the customer’s highest previous bill.
Another customer complained that her usage inexplicably spiked from an average of 20-30 kWhs per day to 150 kWhs per day in February 2007. When she requested a meter test, the customer was refused, “given a phone number” and told to “have my own review done at my own expense.” After intervention by Blumenthal’s office, CL&P determined “there were no similar (seasonal) spikes in previous years,” recalculated the bill and credited the consumer $287.96.
The Westport Board of Education also received a $450,000 bill from CL&P after the company had neglected to issue any bills for a Staples High School meter for more than three years. Blumenthal said the DPUC should order CL&P to cease further collection activity for a huge bill that resulted from the company’s own errors.
