A man from Hemet reached out to the NBC4 I-Team when he noticed his utility bill skyrocketed. Carolyn Johnson reports for the NBC4 News on Feb. 28, 2024.
Last year, John Beckham’s power bill for his small mobile home more than quadrupled. A typical SoCal Edison bill used to run $27 a month, but lately, his bills have been as high as $140.
Beckham said a SoCal Edison repair tech came to his home last fall and found the problem: the company was billing him for his neighbor’s meter.
“I said, ‘Well, when is this going to be fixed? When am I going to be charged for my actual meter?’”
Beckham never got an answer. Months went by and SoCal Edison didn’t fix the problem. Beckham said his finances are tight and he can’t afford those big bills; he lives on social security. Even worse, he’s fighting a bigger battle: brain cancer. And he said the stress of it all is too much.
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“I was pleading with Edison. I started to tell one representative, ‘I’m dealing with brain cancer.’ And she just cut me off. And said ‘Sir, I don’t know what you expect me to do,’” Beckham said.
Finally, Beckham turned to the I-Team for help. We contacted SoCal Edison and it’s refunding John what he overpaid: $608. It’s also fixing the meter.
“This is something they knew about, they could have corrected a lot sooner, and I was just being ignored, basically,” he said.
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The I-Team asked SoCal Edison why it took so long to fix Beckham's problem.
“So what I can tell you is we take our customers’ needs very seriously and apologize that it took longer than we’d like to resolve this customer’s matter,” said spokesperson Reggie Kumar.
We had more questions for SoCal Edison, but Kumar just repeated himself.
“So again, we take our customers’ needs seriously and apologize that it took longer than we’d like to resolve this customer’s matter,” he said.
We didn’t get any answers. But we did get Beckham's money back.
“I’m very lucky. Because if it weren’t for you, nothing would have been done. And I mean nothing,” he said.
