What's going on with PPL? Website billing has been screwed up a long time now and can't get through.

Submitted by basement-thug t3_10kkllw in Pennsylvania

We haven't been able to see our usage or bill for at least a week or longer. When we call they say they are going through also me things and the wait time is over 2 hours. Our account shows some ridiculous estimated bill amount for a "64 day billing cycle" even though we have paid our bill in full every month including December... how can we owe for a 64 day billing cycle when it hasn't even been a month since the last?

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet. Figured someone here has the scoop.

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moravian t1_j5rja02 wrote

I filed a complaint with the PUC (it's really easy to do), and my estimated bill is about 2X what it should be. The PPL website has not worked to show actual usage for about a month. I did see on the FB PPL page someone claimed there are 200,000 people with this problem.

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ronreadingpa t1_j5te289 wrote

From my perspective, PPL is extreme cost cutting, which is adversely affecting their service. Never in over 30 years have I ever seen PPL drop the ball so much as in the past year.

The recent billing issues likely isn't due to any hack (if it was, they'd likely have mentioned that; likely be required to and would provide a convenient out), but rather lack of care and incompetence.

In addition, PPL appears to aggressively be seeking new revenue streams. Some of which may be illegal. PUC and others should investigate why PPL seemingly didn't try hard to negotiate the best default rate possible, which they're obligated to do. How it is that nearby electric utility default rates are so much lower. Something shady is going on with PPL.

My hunch is PPL and/or insiders own a stake in 3rd party suppliers and/or generators. This needs to be investigated.

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opskito t1_j5rcijn wrote

Folks on Nextdoor are reporting similarly outrageous bills.

According to one commenter, it’s all due a PPL system glitch. She said—without providing a source—that PPL wants customers to call in an actual reading to get their bill adjusted or pay it and receive credit for the overage.

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basement-thug OP t1_j5rercv wrote

Yeah I can't see anything I'm not joining that site.

What I don't understand is they are estimating we used nearly 2k kwh in the last month. We usually use 700 kwh in a month... they're egregiously abusing the latitude to bill an "estimated" amount. My estimated amount should be my average Jan monthly amount, not 3x that much.

How is anyone supposed to get through when they're open 8-5 and hold time is 2 hours? I'll calculate our usage and pay them what I owe them and they can figure it out from there. I'm not paying 3 months of service because they screwed up and play some game to get my money back lol, that ain't how this works jack!

Right now I don't even have a balance yet, so we will see how it goes.

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bad185 t1_j5rgpsh wrote

https://local21news.com/news/local/ppl-responds-after-customers-express-outrage-over-recent-utility-bills

I was just talking about this with a friend, she sent me this article. Looks like a system issue so they sent out estimated bills and will reconcile them next cycle.

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basement-thug OP t1_j5rgzw0 wrote

Yeah... which would be fine if they actually used my account historical usage to calculate the "estimated next bill", but they clearly didn't. The estimated amount is 3x what I typically pay in December-January.

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bad185 t1_j5rh7oq wrote

Oh definitely. My friend got a bill for over $1000, which is also like 3x her normal usage.

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basement-thug OP t1_j5ri7pz wrote

Sounds like they are abusing their ability to bill an estimated amount by tripling the amount. I'm not doing it. I read my meter and will pay them the more accurate estimated amount. They'll get over it once they read the meter and get it correct. I don't play that game with multimillion dollar companies. I'll owe them before they'll owe me, because I can't trust them to give me my money back. I owe them for what I used not some erroneous number they came up with.

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thekush t1_j5rll4f wrote

I just logged in and checked my Daily Electricity Usage chart and it's just fine. Two weeks ago there were some gaps in it where a couple days showed 0 usage. I didn't get excited and it looks like they eventually filled in. Everything looks normal for me at this time.

We DO NOT use the budget plan, I know my Winter bills will be higher and my Summer bills will be lower.

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