Ameren will not pay for undercharge mistake in Jefferson City
A Jefferson City woman reached out to ABC 17 News Wednesday after Ameren sent her a bill for $600 out of the blue.
Ameren admitted the bill is their mistake, but they said she still has to pay up.
Things are not as merry as they are bright at Denise McCorkle’s house.
Amen said they have been sending her the bill for the wrong meter for the past 9 months.
Even though they admitted the mistake was on their end, they want the $600 difference, regardless.
“I can’t possibly be expected to pay this,” said McCorkle. “They will not budge.”
McCorkle told ABC 17 News it all started at about this time last year when Ameren did something she knew nothing about.
“For some reason they decided to switch our meter and we didn’t know anything about it. When they take the meters out of the box, they will call in and put a number on the meter and say, ‘here is the number of the meter and here is the address.'”
However, whoever swapped her meter swapped her number with another one.
She was crediting her lower bills to some recent insulation work she had done on her house, but it turns out that isn’t the case at all.
ABC 17 reached out to Ameren to ask about McCorkle’s bill, but they said they don’t discuss customer information.
A breakdown of her actual 9 months of service shows the wrong amount they charged compared to the actual amount she now has to make up.
Ameren sent ABC 17 a statement, saying, “In the event of an undercharge, the utility shall offer the customer the option to pay the adjusted bill over a period of at least double the period covered by the adjusted bill.”
McCorkle said they have offered her a payment plan, but will be keeping a closer watch on future Ameren bills.
She said since she put her story on Facebook, she has received messages from several people about similar stories that have happened to them.
McCorkle did check with the Public Service Commission. If the bill would have exceeded one year, she would not have been responsible for the charges, but everything up to a year is still billable.
