A cautionary tale of bill shock and redress | The Examiner | November 28, 2023 - video Dailymotion

Michelle O'Byrne and Bev Catlin share a tale of bill shock, a search for answers and a caution to all to check their bills. Video Rod Thompson

Transcript

00:00 So, thanks for being here today. We're here with Bev and Bev has got a cautionary tale

00:07 that actually speaks to a potential significant problem with people's energy bills. We've

00:14 had a lot of people saying that, particularly over the winter, their energy bills were incredibly

00:18 high. They expected them to go up a little bit, but they've gone up quite a lot. So Bev

00:23 and her partner paid their bill and then were really quite shocked at how big the increase

00:28 was. There is no office in Launceston that they can go in and speak to, so they rang

00:32 up and said, "Look, we're really concerned and we want to test this," and they were offered

00:36 a $70 rebate. They were still convinced that this almost doubling of the bill to over $800

00:43 was a big jump. So when they were in Hobart, they decided to take their bills in and go

00:47 and have a chat there and managed to get an over $300 rebate because there had been what

00:52 they termed a glitch in the system. So Bev's worried, quite rightly, that she might not

00:58 be the only person to have had a glitch, and her real question is how many people were

01:03 impacted, why did she have to go to Hobart to get a result, why did she physically have

01:08 to walk in, but also has a full review been done of everybody's bills to make sure no

01:14 one's been impacted? It was very stressful and we thought, well, there's no argument,

01:20 we're going to have to check it out. And then we sat and discussed it and decided we had

01:27 to pay it because other than that we would have got it cut off. So our option was to

01:32 pay it and go for it. And so then we ended up with a $300 and something credit. But your

01:39 first attempt on the phone, they offered you a $70 rebate, which is quite a different outcome

01:44 for you. Yes, which is entirely different than going in. Staff in Hobart office were

01:51 absolutely fantastic and we were very lucky there. We had a very friendly person that

01:57 was talking to us and helped as much as she could. And I'm very grateful to her. And came

02:04 back out after she went in and she apologised to us and said that it was a glitch in the

02:11 system and they had a new computer set up. But I was very concerned is that if there

02:19 is only an office in Hobart for anybody, me being a pensioner and others being pensioners

02:26 and everything, elderly people, younger people that can't get to Hobart, to be able to speak

02:34 face to face with somebody.

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