$108,000 electric bill shocks Oak Park resident

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Kathy and David Rajter's February electric bill came as a major shock at $107,625.16.

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Updated: February 22, 2012 12:09PM

Good thing Kathy Rajter opened her electric bill right away.

The Rajters’ January bill was $276, paid via an automatic bank deduction. Had she not looked, this month’s deduction would have been $108,000.

That’s right. Rajter’s electric bill was $107,625.16.

Rajter is one of the thousands of Oak Park residents who now get their energy supplied by a third party — Integrys Energy — under the village’s new electrical aggregation program. However, Commonwealth Edison still handles the billing.

When the first bill reached her mailbox last week, Rajter was keen to see her savings.

“Savings” would be the last word she’d use to describe it.

“That’s more than we paid for our first house in Oak Park!” her husband, David, said incredulously when he was handed the bill.

“The taxes alone (and fees) on the bill were $16,000,” said Kathy Rajter.

While the Rajters had used 2,236 kilowatt hours the previous month, the new bill showed them consuming a whopping 1,647,499 kilowatt hours, a number rivaling many large industrial customers.

Obviously, a mistake had been made, one that just as obviously could be corrected. But also a mistake that could have created huge problems for the Rajters come Feb. 24.

“I have automatic withdrawal, and I have overdraft protection,” said Rajter. “Imagine if I’d just set the bill aside. It would have wiped out my entire checking and savings.”

She called ComEd and asked to have the automatic withdrawal stopped. They eventually said they could do so, but said they didn’t send out confirmations for that.

She then called Integrys. A representative told her that ComEd had sent them a bill for about $54,000, which they rejected.

“They told ComEd to send another bill,” Rajter said. ComEd did so, sending Integrys a second bill for “about $50,000.”

Rajter said the Integrys rep told her neither bill was accepted.

“I said, ‘The amount on my bill adds up to the two bills you got from ComEd,’” Rajter protested.

Rajter next called ComEd, informed them of the mistakes on her bill and asked them to come to her house and physically read her meter.

“They just said ‘sometime next week,’” she said.

“It’s kind of comical if you look at it that way,” Rajter said, not exactly laughing. And she said she won’t be laughing Friday if there’s no money left in her checking and savings accounts.

Rajter called the village’s sustainability manager, K.C. Poulos. She too called Integrys, which placed the blame squarely on ComEd.

“I wouldn’t be laughing if I was in her shoes either,” said Poulos.

She was also concerned that the hopefully one-time glitch doesn’t give the new electrical aggregation program a black eye.

“It had nothing to do with Integrys or electrical aggregation,” Poulos said. “This was ComEd.”

A ComEd spokesman reached Tuesday afternoon said the company could not offer a reliable accounting on short notice of exactly how the mistake occurred, but hoped to know soon. The spokesman did confirm that the Rajters’ electric bill has been zeroed out, and apologized for any inconvenience.

Poulos agreed that Rajter’s worries should be over.

“According to ComEd, the bill is now at zero while they work to determine what she really owes,” she said.

Poulos said she also suggested in an email to ComEd that the Rajters be compensated, perhaps with a credit, for all the time they spent dealing with ComEd’s snafu.

As of Tuesday Poulos hadn’t heard back from the utility.

With everything hopefully resolved, Rajter said she’s able to see a bit of humor in her travails. She certainly has a unique conversation piece, suitable for framing.

She said she trusts ComEd will straighten it out. Still, she admits: once bitten, twice shy.

“On the 24th, I’ll be on the phone making sure I still have money in the bank,” she said.