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Questar Gas wants all its customers to help pay for an incident where 500 customers were underbilled. It introduced a proposal to the Public Service Commission today.
This is the same Questar case we've been hearing about for several months now, not a new one.
This debate about who should pay what stems from a technology error that happened last year. New transponders were apparently only recording a fraction of the customer's usage, so about 500 people were being underbilled for close to two years.
It's a mistake that cost Questar around $1 million. Questar Gas spokesman Darren Shepherd said, "We don't mark up the price to account for these kinds of things in the future to where we can just write it off and increase the price of certain products to cover those things." The only way to recover the losses is to charge the customers now.
The 500 or so customers who were underbilled will be back-billed for only six months of the two years they received discounted rates; that makes up $225,000.
Questar is going to pay $480,000 out of its pocket. That leaves the rest of the customers to pay the remaining $336,000, or about 40 cents each. Questar customer Dee Hart said, "I think they should be responsible, take their responsibility. I think they should, they should be accountable for all this."
"They have been doing any and everything they can to manipulate this thing," said Dan Kennelly, also a Questar customer.
Robertson DeHaan was charged $1,800 for being underbilled. Today's proposed settlement didn't settle well with him. He said, "I don't think I should have to pay anything for a mistake they made."
Questar Gas said the deal was the fairest solution, and that regular customers won't notice the 43 cent difference.
Although it's the faulty transponders which started this mess, Questar said technology was actually saving people money, since it doesn't have to send human beings to homes to check the meters. Shepherd said, "The technology is helping save those customers $5 a year."
The 500 plus back-billed customers will be charged depending on their usage in their home, apartment or business.
The Public Service Commission will make a decision in the coming weeks.
E-mail: ngonzales @ksl.com
