Utility billing shameful

Avista Utilities should be ashamed, and their customers outraged. I, like so many others in Spokane, was overwhelmed at the sight of a December power bill that was double what I had ever paid. Upon contacting Avista, I was never told the outrageous bill I received was based on estimated usage charges, nor was it ever printed anywhere on my statement.

As it turns out, Avista took the liberty of just adding on 1,000 kilowatt hours to your home’s 2007 usages to compensate for the unusual weather. Upon inquiring about my home’s previous December power usages, I was told that was confidential information. Convenient. All I was simply told was that the near-doubled bill had to do with “recent rate increases” and “a longer billing cycle than usual.”

So on top of those reasons, Avista is going to hammer their customers with outrageous “estimated” usages, and then not bother to tell anyone about it in hopes of it just slipping by? I know plenty of Spokane households whose accurate power bills were half of what many people’s “estimated” bill was. Yet another shining example of corporate greed and deception on the backs of hardworking families already struggling to get by.

Conor Lynch

Spokane