Cartwright letter to Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission regarding unusually high PPL Electric Utility bills

Congressman Matt Cartwright issued the following official letter to Gladys Brown Dutrieuille, Chair of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, after constituent complaints to his office regarding unusually high PPL Electric Utility bills.

Dear Chairman Dutrieuille,

Since early January, my office has been in touch with a number of 8th Congressional District residents who have expressed concerns about the unexpected and unexplained size of their utility bills, and also their frustration over the lack of guidance received when contacting or attempting to contact PPL Electric Utilities.

Constituents have reported to me that the bills they have received based on estimated electricity usage have been double or triple their usual amounts.  One constituent was billed $411.16 in January with a bill from the previous month of only $194.60, an increase of over 100%.  Another was billed $215 compared to only $115 the month before.  Others have reported bills as high as $750 and $780 from PPL.  Yet another constituent, who did nothing substantially different from a year ago, received a $584 bill and was informed on the PPL bill that the household’s electricity usage had increased by 25% since January 2022.

Ratepayers received these bills with no guidance or explanation from PPL regarding the increases, and their attempts to reach PPL were often met with excessively long phone holds/waits and/or less than helpful reactions from PPL. One of my constituents reported being informed that there was a 90-minute wait time on the customer service line and requested a call back, which he never received.

While news articles have reported that PPL has now fixed the technical issue that caused the January bills to be both estimated and estimated at overly high amounts, more still needs to be done to make the situation right with lay users of PPL power in Pennsylvania.  Many ratepayers are on a fixed income, and they are understandably worried about being able to pay their mortgages or other due bills along with their highly unusual January PPL bill.  PPL did publish an open “we’ve fallen short” letter to its customer, and that is a start to rectifying the problems caused by its internal operational problems, but I urge the Commission to require the company to take the following additional steps:

1.      Rather than requiring or even expecting customers with excessively high estimates to pay the estimated amount, and then giving those customers credit in the next month for any overpayments, PPL should no longer require payments higher than customers’ usual, expected payments, until such higher amounts are properly documented in a corrected invoice mailed to customers and issued under the usual/standard number of days prior to the invoice’s stated due date.  Such a change in billing policy for January bills should be pushed out to all customers actively by PPL as soon as possible.  Further, if and when the sending out of estimated bills is approved by the Commission in the future, the utility company in question should be required to include a prominent and clear indication that the amount invoiced is, in fact, based on estimated utility usage, along with an explanation of why the customer is receiving an estimated bill plus functional contact information for questions or concerns specifically about the estimate.

2.      The waiving of the late fees for January and February by PPL and its pledge not to shut off power to residential or small business customers for non-payment reasons through March 31 are positive steps, but no account should be considered delinquent during that same period as well.  All of this information should also be actively communicated to every customer through more than just public news releases and website postings.

3.      The pledge to add more agents to answer calls is also the right move, and I urge the Commission to make sure PPL makes good on that promise, and to monitor the ability of customers to communicate easily and effectively with their power supplier.

4.      While PPL has been saying all along that they “are here to help and offer a variety of options – including budget billing, assistance programs, and payment plans – for customers who need help paying their bills,” the company should go further than that in the wake of their own operational and billing errors.  All customers affected or even just confused by PPL’s mistakes should be held harmless by PPL in every way, and that commitment should be actively made to every single customer.

Technological glitches and challenges are common to all private sector and governmental entities, but the real measure of any entity is its reaction and response to these when they occur.  I urge the Commission to require PPL to maximize its response in favor of customers who had nothing to do with the company’s billing problems.

Thank you for your continued attention to this matter.  My requests here are for action consistent with all applicable law and regulation.

Sincerely,

Matt Cartwright

Member of Congress