EDEN, NC -- For a week now we've chronicled a family's frustration at getting a massive Duke Energy bill. We're talking more than $3,000 - payable by June 16. How did this happen? It's a simple question we asked over and over again.
But 2 Wants To Know doesn't give up and this week we found out there's a problem with Duke's billing system. We found this information in a closed complaint investigation by the state. The documents show the state quickly honed in on the problem.
The Hopkins family was using Duke's Equal Payment Plan to get rid of a $3400 bill for electricity they used but didn't pay for. On the complaint a state staffer wrote, the EPP "is not enough for this consumer to pay off debt. It needed to be monitored and adjusted and it doesn't look like it was."
A Duke customer service rep then admitted the company had two problems with the payment plans that include back-billing....like the Hopkins:
- The system may lower their monthly payments.
- The system is not set up to automatically roll the balance in to the next year's payment plan.
The Duke rep says in both instances the consumer has no way of knowing to contact Duke when either of those problems happen.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Duke did acknowledge our questions but the statement did not give us any answers about how it's going to fix the problems it identified.
Also late Tuesday, we heard back from the state. It says it wants to work with Duke to prevent these problems from happening again. We'll keep following it and let you know what happens.
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