Jozi residents, this is your space to connect with the community, share resources, discuss local news and more.
1 Like
Rates have gone through the roof and City Power seems to be billing whatever the want!
Recently we received a bill for 601 days usage - we paid every month - but apparently and according to the person we spoke to, the Meter-Reader “Lied”
We had a smart meter installed in 2023 by City Power, but they only “swithced it on” in April of this year - Now we have 2 meters, 1 - the old meter with many 1000 of Kw on it - and the new meter - the smart meter with 0 on it.
So, in order to keep the readings historically correct they loaded the Old meters many 1000’s of Kw onto the new “Smart” meter (Now there’s an oxymoron for you as they still send a person to read it as opposed to a remoter reading … but I digress)
… And thus they are charging us for 601 Days shortfall in the space of 1 month - this shortfall being the exact same number of Kw as what is displayed on the old meter i.e. We are paying to make up the difference between the 2 even though we’ve paid for the initial usage!
Strangely enough, 2 months back, we had received a credit of R15K - now, over and above this 15K credit we still owe R49 = 64K PLUS the monthly usage!!!
To add to which, because the usage is so High for 1 month it is being billed at Step 7, and all of this electricity is being charged at todays’ 2025 rates … But 601 days ago the prices were totally different.
We have reached out to Nersa, who are really being very helpful, but as soon as anything is handed over to City Power for investigation it’s all brick walls, obfuscation and denial - absolutely no accountability! As I said, they’d rather say a meter-reader was “Lying” than accept that they have billed incorrectly.
The process to rectify is to pay and then lodge a dispute with the Ombudsman!?
It is a preposterous state of affairs, and, standing with all the bills in hand, a spreadsheet showing how they’ve made their mistake and where it all went wrong - you are still expected to pay and are treated as if you are trying to diddle them out of their money when, in fact, it is they who are trying to diddle you out of yours!
With all of that said, and if you have made it this far down my rant 
- I would like all of those people with the same issue to give us their story … maybe we can take up a civil suit 
1 Like