Complaint Review: Board of water and light (BWL)

My daughter received a bill from the BWL in january 2014 for over 500.00 for one month service. Her monthly bwl bill for this period every year is less than 200.00  my daughter has owned this home for over 10 years. we called customer service at the bwl in lansing michigan to see what was up with the bill. She was told the bill is correct just pay it.

Come to find out bwl had estimated her bill the two previous months, before finally going out to do an actual reading only aftyer my daughter requsted that they do so. In over 10 years of living in her home she never had a bill over this same time period for over 200.00. something had to be wrong. surely the bwl could see this was an improper charge based on past usage. Again my daughter was told that she owed the amount, just pay it.

I contacted mr. peter Larks office via email. he is the general manager for the BWL in lansing michigan.I was contacted not by Mr. Lark, but by a man called Brock that was in management.We spoke on the phone about the bill. I ask if they would have the meter checked. He said he woud look into it. He ask me to have my daughter call him and give her permission for him to speak with me about the bill.My daughter called him and had to leave a message. He never returned the call to my daughter.

A couple days later i received a call from a repair man that works for the BWL. He told me he was going to remove the electric meter and have it checked. A couple days later my daughter got a phone call from this Brock fellow to say the meter checked out ok, and that she owed the 500.00. She ask him if he had spoken with me her DAD, and he told my daughter that he just got off the phone with me, and he wanted her to no that. He lied to my daughter. He never got back with me. I have left a message on his machine to call me, but I still have not heard from him.

My daughter is a single mother raising a teenage son. She purchased this lansing home over 10 years ago. She has always paid her utility bills. If they compareher previous bills over 10 years of paying, you can see that she never had a bill over 200.00 for this same time period. There has to be something that went wrong to cause this high charge. Maybe the meter didn't function right for a short while. The lansing BWL has a history of treating it's customers in a narrow minded way. there right, and you are wrong. Just this past December 2013 lansing experianced a terrible ice storm. Thousands of lansing residents as well as my daughter were without power for up to 9 days inside the capitol city.All the while the general manager Mr. peter Lark and his family were out of town visiting friends. He left town fully aware of the power problem as it turned out. I must say he did end up giving an apoligy after he got found out.