Good Question: What’s behind RG&E billing issues?

We’re getting a lot of good questions about RG&E. Currently, this is the most asked-about issue hitting our inbox: problems with bills, random credits and huge tabs on what’s owed.

Here’s a recent complaint: “Can you do a story on RG&E and their insane rates and bills? I live in a 1200-square foot home and just got a $730 bill.”

Another: “Any idea what is going on with RG&E and their billing? Many people are complaining that they haven’t received a bill in months and have a credit. I am one of them. My last bill was sent in April.”

Full disclosure, I’m in the same boat with these customers. I stopped getting bills in January. Then my automatic payments stopped in March. So what on earth is going on?

I sent your good questions straight to the company. RG&E puts the blame on the pandemic. That created staffing challenges affecting meter reads.

"The staffing shortage resulted in many customers receiving estimated bills when they were scheduled for an actual read."

The company also says, "As we begin to get actual reads after multiple estimates, this may result in the need for RG&E customer service personnel to review the bill if the actual read is higher or lower than what is expected. Due to the pandemic-related delay in reconciling estimated bills with actual meter reads, we have a higher normal volume of making bill adjustments, these adjustments have delayed some customer bills."

RG&E adds it’s evaluating resources needed to catch up on everything, and more staff has been brought on board to help.

You can always reach out to customer service to get an explanation if your bill seems way off and hundreds more than expected. And there are flexible payment arrangements that can be made for expensive bills.

I can tell you, it took me a couple of tries getting through to get everything squared away. But just last week, my bills and credits were processed, the auto payment went through. But it was a lot, paying for months delayed all at once.

Customers who need help with an expensive RG&E bill can click here for a full list of the company’s programs.