Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has been sued for alleged fraud, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and other violations, by customers claiming they were overcharged due to the department’s computer billing system, Los Angeles Daily News reported.
“DWP’s new billing system is highly dysfunctional,” said Tim Blood, an attorney representing clients in one of the cases, according to Los Angeles Daily News. “The refunds in the correct amounts, should simply be paid back and the billing system should be fixed so these types of problems can no longer occur.”
Since the customer service computer system launched in 2013, department officials have been faced with a consistent stream of problems, including erroneous bills and lengthy call wait times.
One customer, Daniel Morski, sued the department Jan. 7. Another group of customers – Sharon Bransford, Steven Shrager and Rachel Tash – filed suit Dec. 4. Bransford’s suit says she received an electricity bill of $909 in April 2014.
With glitches in the new system, some bills were estimated rather than based off actual meter readings, which typically overcharged or undercharged ratepayers. If the estimate was too low, LADWP would send a corrected bill. These one-time corrections are where the overcharges occurred, customers said, as they would afterward be put into a higher seasonal rate or higher rate tier as though they consumed all the power or water in a single billing cycle.
Other allegations from the suits are that approximately 1.5 million estimated bills were sent out between September 2013 and October 2014; some bills indicated that they were “estimated” while others did not; and customers who did not receive bills were later sent higher bills that included usage for the previous months.
LADWP officials say they have taken measures to address the problems at hand, including re-issuing bills to customers who were sent estimates.
“We have been very forthright about the problems with our new customer billing system and we have taken significant steps to fix them,” spokesman Joe Ramallo said in a statement.
Additionally, the department has hired more than 200 people to fill customer representative and meter reader positions to reduce call wait times and reduce the number of estimated bills, which have fallen from 21 percent to 5 percent, according to LADWP records.
Customers may be waiting a year and a half before any potential settlement comes to the table, said USC law professor Lisa Klerman, according to the Daily News. It takes time for class-action claims to weave through the court system; a judge would first need to certify the cases, which could be combined, and that by itself could take six months, Klerman said.
To date, no court hearings have been set for the lawsuits, according to court records.
(With reports from Los Angeles Daily News)
