‘Act of God’ proviso means no compensation for Vector clients

Vector has ruled out compensation for thousands of Aucklanders left in the dark after Tuesday’s vicious storm — but one irate customer plans to get his money back by refusing to pay his power bill.

The “Vector Promise” states urban customers of the lines company should get a $50 rebate if their power is not restored in 2.5 hours after an outage. For rural customers, it’s three hours.

But the promise does not apply to faults caused by extreme storms or other extreme events outside the company’s control, Vector says in its online reference guide.

Vector said last night fewer than 1200 properties were still without power and it was now repairing localised damage in those areas.

A company spokeswoman said Vector was focusing on restoring as many customers as quickly as possible.

“However, Vector is not in a position to compensate for loss of electricity supply as a consequence of significant weather events like this (ie, an act of God). “We recommend customers check with their insurers to understand their coverage for any loss in the event of a significant weather event or natural disaster.” She said the company would not be charging customers affected by the outages their daily flat fee to the network. Glen Eden man Stephen Delahunty (pictured) has had no power for six days. Yesterday morning, after his fifth cold shower in a row, he decided, “There is no way I’ll be paying a power bill for the next several months.

“It’s costing me money. All the food from my fridge has been thrown out. I have spent $30 on batteries for my torch. Currently I’m trying to keep basics like milk cool in a chilly bin that needs a bag of ice each day. Not to mention spending on takeaways.”

Vector’s outage map shows most faults are small, isolated ones; the company says some could take another week to fix.

Delahunty said he saw the explosion where his overhead lines were attached to the power pole. Last time that happened it was a blown fuse that took five minutes to fix, he said. But when he finally managed to register the outage with Vector, he was told it wouldn’t be fixed until Thursday at the earliest.

“My electricity supplier and I have a contract that says they supply me electricity and I pay for it. No supply means no payment as far as I’m concerned. If my electricity supplier has a problem with that they can take it up with their lines supplier, Vector.”

More than 100 power lines were taken out by the storm, and Auckland Council said that by Friday night it had received more than 2000 calls about downed trees — more than it normally gets in a month.