Crazy bills, here we go again. Federconsumatori reports several cases of invoices with amounts much higher than normal sent to families residing in Tuscany.
The association highlights in particular the case of a user who received a first bill for 6,777.99 euros and two others for around 700 euros each, for a total of over 8,000 euros. After the report and the intervention of Federconsumatori, the supplier company recalculated the consumption: the maxi-charge was canceled and the town obtained a refund of 282.36 euros for sums paid in excess previously.
What’s behind the “crazy bills”
According to the checks carried out, the problem mainly concerns homes that still use the old mechanical meters. The problem, Federconsumatori clarifies, is not to be attributed to a physical failure of the measuring devices, but to a flaw in the information flow between distributors and sales companies: the failure or incorrect recording of periodic readings in the suppliers’ IT systems.
In the absence of timely measurements, companies process invoicing based on estimated consumption. A mechanism which, at the time of recalculation, can result in maxi-cumulative adjustments completely unrelated to the user’s actual energy withdrawals. The association specified that the cases of anomalous billing detected so far in Tuscany do not involve Enel, but concern several other companies operating in the free energy market.
Federconsumatori’s appeal: “Don’t pay on impulse”
“We are faced with an emergency situation that risks throwing many families in our region into panic and exposing many families in our region to serious economic hardship”, reports the president of Federconsumatori Toscana, Laura Grandi. “Many of these invoices contain macroscopic errors linked to the estimate and recalculation of the readings of the old devices. Our appeal to citizens is clear: if you receive anomalous or disproportionate bills, do not pay on impulse for fear of penalties or delays. Incorrect invoices – concludes Grandi – must be contested immediately through the right channels”.