An unbelievable mistake led a electric bill refund to be issued after a resident unknowingly paid for another household’s electricity for 14 years. Due to an incorrectly registered electric meter number, the affected man discovered the error late and successfully got back over $14,000.
Houston local news station KHOU 11 reported on the 20th that Peter Yang, a man believed to be of Korean descent living in Houston, Texas, recently received more than $14,000 in refunds from multiple electricity providers.
The issue began in June 2012. Yang’s electricity bill had been registered with another home’s meter number. Because of this, Yang was paying based on another household’s usage rather than the electricity he actually consumed.
Yang first grew suspicious when his electricity bills refused to go down. Even after raising his air conditioner temperature to save power, he was billed $200 to $300 every month, sometimes reaching up to $400.
As a retired engineer and pastor, Yang began recording his power usage and checking the meter himself. He eventually discovered that the meter number installed at his home differed by one digit from the number on his bill.
In a broadcast interview, Yang stated, “The consumption displayed on the meter was completely different from the bill, and the meter number itself was also different.”
However, correcting the erroneous charges was no easy task. Yang spent months contacting the power company CenterPoint Energy and his electricity billing provider, but the issue remained unresolved. Yang lamented, “The companies refused to believe me because I had been using the same number for a long time.”
Ultimately, Yang filed a formal complaint with the Public Utility Commission of Texas on June 29. The very next day, CenterPoint Energy sent a technician to his home to inspect the meter.
The situation shifted after the story was covered by the media. Following an investigation, CenterPoint Energy confirmed that Yang had overpaid his electricity bills for 14 years. CenterPoint issued an apology for the inconvenience caused to the customer and stated they would cooperate until the refund process was fully completed.
Yang eventually recovered the overpaid amounts accumulated since June 2012 from various electricity providers. However, he expressed that it remains a mystery how such an error went unnoticed for 14 years while passing through multiple companies.
Yang urged other consumers to check their electricity bills against their actual meter numbers. He emphasized that if electricity bills are unusually high or usage does not match, checking the meter number is a necessary first step.
