In the Oak Park suburb of Chicago the residents were asked to convert their energy supply through a third party, Integrys Energy, as part of an electrical aggregation overhaul. It seems like the new company is off to a bad start as one of the thousands of residents received a bill better fit for a large industrial plant. When Kathy and David Rajter received their first bill under the new program last week, they found it to be a whopping $107,625.16. The massive tab showed energy consumption at 1.6 million kilowatt hours, a far cry from their previous usage of 2,236 kilowatts the month before.
An obvious mistake, Kathy rushed to call ComEd, who handles the billing, because she's set up for automatic deduction from her checking account. As bureaucracy commonly asserts, both companies had absolutely no idea how the mistake happened and felt no urgency to check her meter in the same week. “Imagine if I’d just set the bill aside — it would have wiped out my entire checking and savings," Mrs. Rajter said. "It’s kind of comical if you look at it that way,” she said with a half laugh. As of Tuesday a ComEd spokesman apologized, said they're looking into the mistake, and assured her that the scheduled deduction from her account was cancelled. We'll see about that…
Isn't it funny how quickly an issue becomes a priority for a company once it receives media attention? If the money is deducted, should the couple file a suit or just settle the problem at hand?
