re: Entergy customers see sudden 300 percent increase in bills

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So they did were not billed for electricity they did not use. They were not overbilled. They will be allowed to pay it over over several months.

Bet nobody complained about the low bills all summer???

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I think very few people would know if a bill was low. Electricity prices and consumption are not exactly a very transparent, or easily understood, process.

I do think they owe the money and I'm glad they will be able to pay it out.

However, the following questions remain.

1) If it happened to thousands of people, how did Entergy not catch this? Do they not have any internal controls to flag large increases like this?

2) Why did it take the media getting involved for Entergy to figure this out?

3) Why is Entergy saying "we will reach out to everyone who contacted WWL-TV"? Why are they not saying "we will reach out to anyone that this happened to".

When we moved to Katy after Katrina, we bought a new house. We got our natural gas account set up with Centerpoint Energy. Bills come in, we pay them. About 2.5 years after we moved in, I get a certified letter from Centerpoint. They did some sort of routine audit, and determined that they incorrectly set up my account as a commercial account, and not a residential account. Commercial accounts have a higher rate, so I basically was overcharged for 2.5 years. I went back and checked my bills, nowhere on there did it indicate if it was a residential or commercial account. There was a number to call to discuss how to handle.

I called. They were very, very apologetic. They offered me the following options:

1) They would overnight me a check for the total amount of the overages going back 2.5 years.

2) They would credit my account for 125 percent of the overages.

I chose the credit option and didn't pay a bill for almost a year.

If Entergy ever had this situation, i have 0 percent faith they would handle it as well.