20071025Maurice Eckhart, Sons comments.pdf

From: Mike 2085432543 To: Idaho Public Utilities Comm.Date: 10/25/2007 Time: 9:22:38 AM Page3of8
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MAURICE H. ECKERT & SON'S, INC
700 EAST 4795 NORTH
BURL, IDAHO 83316
ZOOl OCT 25 Af4 9: . 0
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Idaho Public Utilities Commission
Boise, f daho Ru L -U-o'l-C)L.-
Re:3L21.01 CUSTOMER RELATIONS RULES
Billing errors. Docket No. 31~2101-0701
We are a customer ofIdaho Power and have been since 1956. Our power bills for 2007 .
are at $80 000 and we have twenty (20) accounts.
We strongly suppon the recommendations of changing the amount oftime in which
Idaho Power can recover from their billing errors. Frankly, Idaho Power shouldn t be
able to recover anything monetarily if the error is due to their negligence and
incompetence which we have seen in the very recent past.
There are numerous reasons why we support changing the time period from three years to
six months:
1. Idaho Power customers have no control of when or if any part, device, or control
is or was actually changed by Idaho Power. Even though there is a notification
requirement, Idaho Power routinely ignores the ruling and discounts the ruling as
meaningless during settlement negotiations.
2. We have never been contacted by Idaho Power about any changes they have made
to our electrical systems. Only when they discover errors do they notify the
affected party and sometimes many years have gone by when errors are made,
especially those which were due to negligence on their part.
3. In prior years, when eITors have occurred, we have never been given the chance to
examine, test or otherwise validate whether a meter, current transfonner or other
part(s) is working properly.
4. We have no control of any billings or accounting methods used to bilJ by Idaho
Power Company. Weare never given the 15~minute readings, for example, to
ensure that nothing is amiss in our billings, demand charge, or efficiency of ourpumps.
. .
5. We believe that current outstanding errors (i.e. errors that have been discovered
but are not yet settled and/or paid) within the Idaho Power system should be
grandfathered under this ruling. Recent errors discovered in 2006 are significant
for some irrigation customers and are causing a significant hardship on them).
From: Mike 2085432543 To: Idaho Public Utilities Comm.Date: 10/25/2007 Time: 9:22:38 AM Page 4 of 8
6. We also believe that the customer should be able to collect from or send a bill to
Idaho Power for their own time and effort in resolving past billing ~rrors. The
amount of recovery should include reimbursement of fees spent for attorneys, .
consultants, accountants and should include reimbursement for time the customers
themselves have spent on trying to figure the error, especially ifIdaho Power
provides them meaningless. data that can t be tied to the billing error, as we have
seen in the most recent past.
The CUITent policy of allowing Idaho Power to go back three (3) years for billing errors
due to machinery failure and due to accounting errors and the like is absolutely
ridiculous. No other business in Idaho that we know of has the ability to charge
customers for past errors that were made by that business.
In conclusion, we support the change to six (6) months for billing errors and the like
made by Idaho Power Company. We are disappointed thatthe public was not notified of
this change as we believe there would be overwhelming support for this rule change.
ZA/
Granville B. Eckert, President
Maurice H. Eckert & Son s, Inc.