Daily Archives: September 16, 2015

Overcharging on Utility Bills Is Common, But What Can You Do?

As a licensed professional engineer and Certified Energy Manager, I have reviewed hundreds of utility bills and tracked energy consumption of many buildings to determine the feasibility of energy-efficiency upgrades. While I have been successful helping many buildings incorporate common-sense new technologies to save money, there is another, much simpler, risk-free way to save energy costs. In reviewing bills, I have come across seemingly obvious errors, such as incorrect tax rates and delivery taxes for ESCO accounts. With utility costs being a greater percentage of a building’s costs and ever-more complex electric, gas and water bills, there is a growing number of potential errors that could result in overcharging; errors that are difficult for even experienced building managers to catch even if they knew what to look for.

The way to avoid such issues and to not be overcharged on utility bills is a new and growing sub-field in energy services: BILL RECOVERY.

What is Bill Recovery?

It is simply the organized process of having your utility bills carefully scrutinized for errors by experts using complex algorithms that look at taxes, tariffs, meter-read errors, utility rates, and other issues that make up the over 100 components of a typical electric, gas or water bill.

Bill recovery services are generally contingency-based so there is no out-of-pocket cost to you. If no errors are found, the review will not cost you anything, and you will know that you were correctly charged. If errors are found, the company recovers the refund from the utility and sends you a pre-negotiated split of the recovery. Plus, you will have the assurance that you will be charged fairly in the future, and thus save future costs, too, compared to not having the review performed. For larger accounts, it has been shown to be worthwhile to go through the utility bill review process a second or even a third time as errors missed by other bill recovery companies have been found or due to changes in billing that occur subsequently.

I found the argument compelling. You should consider having a Bill Recovery analysis performed. Again, there is no cost to you for the analysis, and potentially much money to be recovered that you would not know about otherwise if errors are found.

However, make sure it is done by an experienced expert, using up-to-date software. You can contact Jean Hamerman at Vantage Energy at jean@vantageetc.com with any questions or just to learn more about a potential Bill Recovery program for you. No obligation. Vantage Energy (www.vantageetc.com) has extensive experience in this area, saving its clients millions of dollars in improperly assessed utility costs.