News10NBC investigates: RG&E attempts to charge Greek family nearly $13,000
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A Greek family has been paying their monthly RG&E bill automatically for years, but the week of Christmas, RG&E tapped into their account for a nearly $13,000 December payment.
Alicia Latomasi has paid her RG&E bill on time, every month since she and her husband moved into their Greek home in July 2019.
“We put it on autopay, just to make it easier for us,” she told News10NBC.
It was easy until last week.
“Everything went well, no problems until we received a letter from our bank stating that RG&E had attempted to charge $12,888.91 from our account,” she said.
Latomasi immediately called RG&E.
“I was transferred three times from customer service, to customer service, to customer billing, and then at that point they tried to transfer me to credit and the call was dropped during that time,” says she remembers.
A day after RG&E attempted to deduct nearly $13,000 from her bank account, Latomasi received a letter from the utility claiming she hadn’t taken a meter reading in 51 months — despite the fact that her two meters were located outside.
Thus, the bill was apparently a reconciliation of the difference between the estimated bills the Latomasis paid over the past four or more years and their actual usage.
“My meters are both outside and my husband and I both work from home,” says Latomasi. “So at any time, if there was a problem accessing a meter – it’s right outside our house – there’s one right at the back of the house. If there had ever been a problem, someone could have come to the door and we would have happily given the necessary access. It is negligence not to read your own meters. A customer reading is a courtesy. A reading of the company is a necessity.
Latomasi went back and forth with customer service about the bill. She says RG&E offered a 15% discount on the balance and a payment plan. But at this point, she doesn’t even trust the math and she certainly won’t allow RG&E into her bank account anymore.
“That’s the first thing I did was remove autopay. I would recommend against autopay for this reason. You try to do something to make it easier, but in the end it really could have bitten us,” she says.
“RG&E is thoroughly investigating this matter and working with the customer to resolve,” an RG&E spokeswoman told News10NBC in an email.
After News10NBC contacted RG&E on Latomasi’s behalf, she received a call from a manager. Although the utility claims the bill is accurate, it offered a 75% discount because it took four years to reconcile the bill. RG&E also offered a 51-month payment plan on the remaining 25% – the same time it took a meter reader to take an actual reading.
News10NBC investigative reporter Jennifer Lewke asked RG&E if it has a system for flagging residential bills that appear excessive and reviewing them, perhaps even calling the customer to warn them or explain.
The RG&E spokeswoman referred her to the one-line statement provided above.
