more wapa fun

Since they took 1000kwh off the reading for last months billing, you should get 1000kwh of credit towards your next reading. Do you keep all of your monthly statements? The very first one should have a starting point reading where it all started on your tab. And with the latest known correct reading you should be able to do some forensic accounting to confirm your books match the WAPA books.
It could get tricky If at some time WAPA changed the meter on you and you do not have the end reading when they changed to a new meter (the glass dome unit).
Everyone should learn to read their meter. http://www.glps.net/meterread.htm

WAPA pays the meter reader maybe a little more than minimum wage? How much faith do you put into a meter reading by someone that most likely slid thru math classes?
The same goes for water usage meters.
This also brings up the thought of how many accounts are being misread and WAPA is on the losing end of the read. Which means higher rates for all accounts.

I've posted this story before but it still galls me so I'll tell it again :-X Not WAPA-specific but in the same vein.

This is a cautionary tale about using autodraft payments for utilities or bills that vary from month to month.

In the states I put my electric bill on autopay. The utility company rarely read the meter. Some months the bill was $3, other months $300. Could never predict.

Then one month they overbilled me by hundreds of dollars. Took months to straighten out. Before it was fixed, another problem arose. They had been mis-reading the meter for who knows how long. Someone read it correctly and the reading was less than the reading on the last bill. The computer didn't know how to handle the minus sign and the automatic calculation resulted in...

OVER NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS BEING TAKEN FROM MY CHECKING ACCOUNT!!!

'bout had a stroke when I saw my bank statement. Took a month and hours of phone calls to get that back.

If it hadn't been on autopay I would have caught the mistake before they robbed me. Luckily I had enough money in my checking account, otherwise all kinds of checks would have bounced, multiplying my troubles.

I started taking time/date stamped pictures of my meter every month the day before the anticipated reading. Maybe I should start photographing my meter here on STT just in case... (I'm not on autopay with WAPA)

Last month I received no bill, just an overdue notice. Save every piece of paper the VI govt. generates, forever. Taking a pic of the meter is a great idea.

Geoffmichelle, The exact same thing happened to us. We were on the phone with WAPA for months and they didn't know what we were talking about and blew us off. We finally started reading our meter at the same time every day and recording it in a notebook. We called WAPA over and over with our readings and finally, someone came out and started over again with an initial reading which got us back on track. This process took MONTHS to get through. We also got the name of someone higher up than customer service to bug about it, which helped as well. Good luck.

I don't have any comment on the specifics in the above posts, but when you start having any problem like this, phone calls become useless, IMO. The only thing to do is arm yourself with all the paper you have and go see them in person.

:-X WAPA

No lights no motor car not a single luxury.......like Robinson Crusoe.......we're primitive as come be!!!

another thing to do to make sure your not paying for electricity your not using.
Turn off everything in your house including the water heater, assuming it is electric.
Then go outside and see if the meter wheel is completely stopped. The big horizontal disc. If it is still moving go thru the house again to make sure everything is off or unplugged. Your tv will still use power when turned off.
People have done it before................pirate power pulling.

good one heep! thanks for the info...I'll try it and will post results...anyone else want to? could be interesting.