In the wake of billing fiasco, Hydro One is waiving monthly service charges

Hydro One says it has resolved problems preventing it from generating bills for up to one year for 37,000 customers, and is making progress on clearing the backlog.

If the bill isn’t already in the mail, it will be soon, promises Mike Winters, Hydro One’s vice-president of operations.

We’ve been reporting on the util- ity’s inability to send many customers an invoice, due to billing system glitches that are also behind overcharges that prompted an investigation by provincial Ombudsman Andre Marin.

Not getting a bill might seem like a good thing, but when Hydro One is the subject of thousands of complaints about excessive bills, customers who haven’t seen one in many months fear the worst when it ar- rives. Winters, who added customer service to his job title in March, said it is clearing the backlog at a rate of 2,000 to 3,000 per week and sent out 1,000 bills last Thursday, the best evidence yet that it has turned the corner. Based on the overbilling fiasco, many customers worry that when the bill arrives, it will be for a lot more than the actual power used, and they’ll have no grounds to dispute it. But customers will only be billed for actual usage, said Winters, noting its 1.3 million smart meters are 99.9 per cent accurate, even if some have been unable to transmit consumption data. “We’re not pleased with the angst and stress we’ve caused our customers (and) we’re not pleased that we have lost the confidence of some customers,” he said. As a goodwill gesture, Hydro One is waiving the monthly service charge, which ranges from $15 to $30 monthly, for every month that a customer doesn’t get a bill, said Winters. What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To contact us, go to thestar.com/thefixer or call us at 416869-4823. To read our blog, go to thestar.blogs.com/thefixer. Report problems and follow us on Twitter @TOStarFixer.