On the least trusted list
Consumers lose faith with power supplier
ASK Toowoomba residents to rate their least trusted professions and used car salesmen, politicians and bankers would probably feature prominently.
You can now add the city’s energy provider to that list.
Yesterday, The Chronicle revealed Ergon Energy had outsourced routine meter reading to contractors who regularly skipped properties.
A former meter reader claimed that it led Ergon to guess many household electricity bills.
More than 90% of voters in The Chronicle’s online poll said they did not trust that their electricity bills were correct.
There was a similar sentiment on Facebook.
Mark Wiek’s last bill was estimated and he was astounded by how wrong they had got it.
“It was based on the bill 12 months ago and was nowhere near the same,” he said.
“I rang and they sent someone around to do a read... $1000 less.
“I have rung three times to get them around to put a new meter box at the side of the house and no one has even gotten back to me.
“The reads next year will be done by private contractors and I was told by the Ergon man if they can’t access your property, even if you are home, they won’t be knocking.”
Janine Allan suggested the guesswork was not applied to just electricity in Toowoomba.
“Very dodgy electricity and equally dodgy water bills here,” she said.