Issues of arbitrary/excessive billing, possible meter fault/fraud
Despite complaints filed months ago, not only has there been no response, but the bill is same, with questionable and arbitrary 'Credits & Adjustments' charges that not only *add* to the bill are taxed with SGST/CGST. Further, they keep posting an interest charge, though all amounts were fully paid before the due date..
1. Most important, despite the fact that my poor father passed away and there is hardly anyone here to use power, plus one of the geysers already is busted since January, and there is very, very conservative and limited use of power including only turning on one geyser for 10 minutes a day and no devices drawing huge current, the bill continues to remain in the same range from last year, How can such drastic power reduction result in the same bill?
This excess billing situation needs investigation and correction, with refund o[censored]ndue charges. BESCOM has been contacted repeatedly over this issue but nothing has been done.
2. For quite some time, there have been problems getting bills, the online billing system always showed negative balance, and with there being no way to see or pay the bill, our power has been cut thrice, including once when the meter reader changed and hastily cut our supply.
When there is no bill, and unlike so many other govt services like house tax, BSNL, Corp bills, there is no facility to receive bills by email or text or WhatsApp at BESCOM, how is it possible to pay?
When BESCOM only uses paper bills and does not deliver them properly, often throwing a bundle of bills into the apartment, why are we still penalized, interest charges piled on interest charges, even disputed amounts never fixed and refunded? This has resulted in an inflated bill all these months, and you charge interest on interest, fleecing senior citizens of their hard earned money? This is not correct. Please refund all these undue charges. There are also unexplained and arbitrary charges such as negative credits and (negative) adjustments without basis.
Further, there seems to be gimmicks to increase revenue unfairly. With bills being delivered late at not at all, there is often no time to pay so that you can then start charging interest. Further, with 0 to 3 days left to pay the bill, though the due date is 20th, you ask us to pay 2 days in advance so as to not incur interest? What is the meaning of billing date and due date, if you defraud the customer by not even following this correctly? So far, this month's bill includes an additional Rs 224 that we are disputing, probably carried over month to month without correction. A couple months ago, 120 was arbitrarily added under "Credits & Adjustments" plus SGST/CGST on "Chq dis/D&R fee." What are all these unexplained charges?
Since there is no way to pay anything but the full amount online, we are forced to pay the full amount.
This way, mistakes or desperate attempts to augment revenue can be made by BESCOM with impunity, and if bills are not paid fully in time, you will cut power, thus the domestic consumer will be under threat and get extorted and fleeced with interest and other charges.
This is not right. Please rectify and refund all disputed amounts.
3. It is unduly harassing when we cannot pay even partial, undisputed amounts due to a rigged billing system. The online billing system says we can overwrite the amount we are going to pay, but it does not work and one is forced to pay the full bill or nothing at all!
We request and look forward to prompt attention to these matters so things can be stable and fair all round without any sort o[censored]ndue worry or pressure to burden super seniors with low incomes in what should be their golden retirement years.
Thank you very much for your help in advance.
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In accordance to their modus operandi, there has been no action on any matters for the last 8 months.
3 sources of excess billing have been found:
1. Possible defective meter. instead of sending trained engineers to investigate, they send meter readers who will redundantly read the meters and always confirm the reading is correct, just to waste everybody's time
There is no scientific, systematic fault diagnosis by engineers, who seem to be all busy with their personal work, traveling out of the office, and outside the calling area of any signals, not missing a meal, meetings and training off site, saying they are in meetings all the time, just generally acting busy. They seem to be well versed on acts of omission and commission such as how to drop a call immediately after picking up, pretend not to hear, stay quiet on the phone so the other party will say hello several times and then give up.
2. Spurious interest charges on top of interest charges at arbitrary rates.
3. Arbitrary charges in the 'Adjustments and Credits' section. These 'adjustments' are always positive, of course, and no explanation is provided in the bill. After a great deal of difficulty, it was found that for some reason, despite the fact that we pay cash in person at Bangalore 1 or debit card, and stopped ECS a long time ago due to this sort of robbery, they are trying to extract money from the defunct ECS account an charging a fine for denied checks! We *never* pay by any sort of check or bank arrangement, and, despite the fact bills are always being paid through other means, they ignore that and regularly access a non-existent or disabled account so they can fine us.
4. They always insist on full payment of every bill, regardless of significant lacunae and disputed false charges, and extort money from unfortunate senior citizens who pay up for fear of losing an essential service like power. This is literally the abuse of power, pun intended!
With this kind of operation, BSNL picks on low and middle income people to compensate in a very tiny way for the myriad heavy usage consumers such as businesses and heavy duty industries that keep defaulting and never pay.
Where is the need to stoop so low and crack down on innocent senior citizens?
Despicable.