A Californian man who was surprised by the high price of his electricity bill discovered that he had been paying his neighbor’s bill for 18 years.
Ken Wilson, a Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) customer who has lived alone in an apartment building in Vacaville since 2006, couldn’t understand why his electric bill was increasing every month.
The retiree sought to reduce his electricity consumption, purchasing a device to monitor the amount of watts his appliances consumed, ABC News reported.
“Even after I turned off my circuit breakers, I kept going out to check my meter to see if it was still working and it was still working. (…) I couldn’t believe it,” Wilson told the American media outlet.
Mr Wilson then contacted his electricity supplier to dispatch an employee who went to his apartment to check his meter, confirming that his suspicions were not unfounded after all.
Electricity company PG&E told local media that its customer had been paying his neighbor’s electricity bill for at least 15 years, three years after he moved in, a mistake the company now wants to correct.
“We sincerely apologize for this oversight and regret the inconvenience caused by the duration of this problem,” said PG&E, which added that the error has been corrected and its customer has been credited with more than $600 US on his account.
