Woman Receives $1.3 Million Electric Bill
Kristin Harriger of Abilene, Texas, was stunned when she received her latest electric bill, which totaled $1,381,783.92. Harriger immediately contacted the company, which blamed the misprint on a third party error.
"I opened it. I read it, then just went 'Oh, my gosh! That's a lot of money,'" Harriger told the Abilene Reporter-News.
She called the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which informed her that the error would be corrected and Harriger would not be subject to the $66,000 late fee.
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"It was either computer error or human error, they said. They said they would look into it and send me a new bill right away," Harriger explained.
"When Ms. Harriger informed us of the erroneous bill, we responded within five minutes and assured her that we would rectify the situation, which is what we have done," Sehr Charania, the electric company's external affairs officer, told Business Insider.
It surely comes as a relief to Harriger, whose previous electric bill had only totaled 100.78. Usually Harriger is charged 8.2 to 12.1 cents per hour, but due to an error, Harriger was charged $1,000 per hour. The charge for the month, then, came to over $1 million.
"I've been pretty calm about it," she noted. "I mean, I've seen medical bills higher than that. I'm just glad I opened the bill and not m y father, who has a heart condition," Harriger said.
According to the United States Energy Information Administration, the average monthly bill is $111, but that number is expected to increase due to a lack of sustainable resources.
Black & Veatch, a consulting and construction firm, said that the increase could range from 1 to 3 percent due to new rules enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency. In order to try and keep costs down, Mark Gabriel, an executive in the Black & Veatch management consulting division, the company is turning to solar and wind energy.
"There's already lots of wind [power] installed," he explained.
As for Harriger, she has already received a new, updated bill with the correct charges.
