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SDG&E Outrageous Bill Jump
Two months ago (Oct-Nov) I was paying approximately $40 for SDG&E: same house, same appliances, no fancy technology/gadgets/toys, same single person who works full time and is not home much on the weekends.
My last electric bill jumped 71%. The month before that it was about $75 higher than usual but I thought it was just two combined bills. This past month it was over $170 more than usual or than it has ever been, in any circumstance, anywhere I have lived.
I do not have heat, I have a fridge, microwave, two TV’s (only one ever watched at a time), a space heater (only in one room). I am very conservative and I have the new green conservation light bulbs everywhere. It's just me in the house ever. I called SDG&E regarding the huge bills and got that same "we don't make mistakes" attitude. The rep even asked me if I was SURE I was the only one living in the house.
I went on the SDG&E website and did all their tests to see where I should rank in energy usage, given all my circumstances. By SDG&E's own standards regarding this last cost acceleration, only one or two households filled with people would rank higher than my usage, as alleged by the last bill. Thus by their own standards, these increases are not possible in my household, yet I cannot get any kind of relieve/repeal/appeal, and the bills will just keep coming that way unless I shut off the electricity.
My gas bill, in complete contrast, comes to about $20. Seems like common sense that anyone only using $20 worth of gas would not additionally be using $160 or so worth of electric.
How can my bill go up over $170 more than three months ago? What could possibly cause a real rise in costs such as that?
Reading all these other similar cases online here, it appears that SDG&E is just charging arbitrary and huge amounts that are not allowed to be disputed or changed. Where is our governmental protection of this utility practice? How can we have no recourse?