700 Dollar Power Bill

Alabama Power Power A Mobile family got quite a shock when their monthly power service cost more than 700 bucks. News 5 Investigates the big bill and gets answers.

by Tiffany Craig

Published: Wed, April 02, 2008 - 5:00 pm CST Last Updated: Wed, April 02, 2008 - 5:58 pm CST

A Mobile family was on the verge of going broke and living in the dark!

They got a 724 dollar electricity bill for one month of service. They were sure it was a mistake.

James Parnell says called Alabama Power as soon as the oversized bill arrived. "I was scared because I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and if the power was to get cut off, I wouldn't know what else to do."

A meter reader came out but that still didn't fix the problem. "They checked the meter and said everything's good. I said, what you mean everything's good? They said number are good! I said no they aint."

Parnell and his family moved into the 13-hundred square foot house in late February and can't afford to pay for someone's mistake. "Something's not adding up right. That means I either have somebody stealing my power or the meter's wrong. There's gotta be a mistake."

Parnell was back on the phone with the power company when we showed up.

We took his 700 dollar power bill to the downtown office and addressed the problem with spokesperson Bernie Fogarty. "This is an unusual case it doesn't happen very often. We have seen things like this happen in the past. We always work through them as we did this time."

Fogarty says account privacy issues won't allow him to talk specifics but usually a phone call can fix the problem. Tiffany said, "He actually did call and he had someone come out and look at the meter. They said yeah that's how much you owe."

Fogarty admits that did happen. "That's correct I will verify that's exactly right. There were some other issues involved in this too and he has agreed to come into the office and we have agreed to reduce the amount of the original billing."

In the end, the Parnell's didn't owe that much at all. Alabama Power is knocking almost 500 bucks off the bill.

The Parnell's believe that they were being charged for the "courtesy" power that was on before they started renting the house. James Parnell made sure that his name was on the bill before they starting moving in but feared this mix up might happen.

The Parnell's just need to verify the date that they moved into the house and the bill will be fixed.

Alabama Power officials say this was an uncommon case and ask that you call the number on your bill if you have problems.

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southfan1981 Says:

Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 11:03 am

Strangely enough, I had an enormous bill for January and Feb too. Too high for what we use here. I use a window unit for heat. REALLY. And it’s not on 24/7. Otherwise, I have an energy star washer, dryer and a gas water heater. Our refrigerator uses $40 of electricity a year. So where is the electricity being used?

amber-marie Says:

Wed, Apr 02, 2008 at 11:18 pm

I about died when I got a 200 dollar power bill in January. I had the same problems, they all came out and told me tha the numbers were right. I knew they werent because I was out of town most of the month and left the heater and air on. And the time I was there, it was hot. And when I told the woman that, she told me, very matter of factly that “It doesn’t get hot in the winter” I am assuming she does not live here?
Anyways. Im glad they are getting it fixed, I sure didn’t. Thankfully I’m back to my normal 80dollar power bills.