COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A Columbus woman said her energy company had been charging her incorrectly for years.

Tracy Derifield moved into a brand-new condominium near Dublin nearly six years ago. At the very beginning, she said everything was normal, including her electric bill.

“And then probably, after about, I don’t know, six months or so, they kind of skyrocketed, you know, upwards of $250 a month,” Derifield said. “And it’s Pioneer Energy Management, is who services our HOA complex. So, I had asked my neighbors, I said, ‘Is your bill as high as mine?’ And people were like, ‘No. Ours isn’t quite that high.'”

Derifield called the company to explain the situation. She said a representative told her to check the meter, but she couldn’t find a problem.

“They basically just brushed me off every single time that I called,” Derifield said.

Until one day in late 2022, one of the company’s employees just so happened to be in the neighborhood. Derifield asked him for help.

“And he said, ‘Let’s do this; I’m going to turn your electric off and I want you to go inside. And if the lights turn on, that means you don’t have the correct meter.’ So, he turned the electric off and came inside,” Derifield said. “And sure enough, the lights came on. So, basically, I was paying the electric of my neighbors and they were paying my electric. The meters were flipped.”

Derifield said Pioneer was made aware of and fixed the issue. But according to her calculations, the subsequent bills still didn’t add up.

“Several discrepancies,” Derifield said. “I mean, there’s $600 worth of late charges on there. And I’m like, ‘How do I owe you money still? How have I paid you $11,000 and I still owe you money?’ So, they said, ‘Well, we’ll give you an $1,800 credit.’ And I was like, ‘Well, where did that $1,800 come from? How did you, how did you arrive at that?’ Because basically, it was like a blanket credit.”

After weeks — eventually months — of back and forth with the company, never getting what she felt was a clear answer or solution, Derifield called Better Call 4. We reached out to the company, and the President of Pioneer Energy Management responded, telling us in a statement:

“Thank you for reaching out and allowing us the opportunity to respond to Ms. Derifield’s account of events. We provide transparency in billing and a dedicated customer service team accessible to all of our customers. In Ms. Derifield’s case, we have gone above and beyond to explain her monthly billing and respond to all of her requests and calls. Please see our responses below to your statements and questions:

You stated, “[A]bout six months in, Tracy says her electric bills consistently went up, even though she lives alone.” The simple answer to this is that electricity, water/sewer, and submetering labor costs more every year and is not an industry immune from inflation. We are a submetering company and not a utility provider. We do not have control of the cost of our submetering customer’s electricity or water/sewer, we step into the process at the point of billing and collecting for their usage.

You stated “Tracy says she sorted that [the meter swap] out with you, but she is still being told she owes hundreds of dollars for electricity used during that time” and you asked “Could someone from PEM explain that IF in fact PEM agreed that the meters were swapped and Tracy was not at fault for the amount of energy used during that time, why she is responsible for paying for it?” We issued a credit to Tracy in the amount of $1,820.24 on 11/1/2022 for the amount in which she had overpaid due to the swapped meters. However, Tracy had not been paying her bills regularly and had an outstanding balance of $1,047.55 at the time the credit was given (because she did still in fact use electricity and water prior to this point) which offset a portion of her credit, leaving her with a credit in the amount of $772.69 immediately on her account. Her credit was depleted by March of 2023 as it was applied to her subsequent monthly bills and a PEM customer service representative personally met with Tracy in June of 2023 to explain her billing and provide her with all documentation relating to her usage and billing. Tracy proceeded to use electricity and water and not make any payments until August of 2023 when she made a partial payment on her outstanding balance of $852.64 at that time. Tracy has been making partial payments on her account since August of 2023, but has not brought it current since the time her credit ran out almost a year ago. Upon written approval from Tracy, we would be willing to share her full statement with you.

You asked, “Are her neighbors also being held responsible?” Yes, her neighbors that were billed too much due to the swapped meters received a credit (like Tracy). The neighbors that had been billed too little received a bill which some have paid at once and which some are on a payment plan.”

Pioneer Energy Management statement

Still, Derifield continued to say that’s not her bill to pay.

“So, basically, they’re putting those late charges on those kind of fraudulent charges, and just want this to be cleared up so we can start from scratch and move forward,” she said.

As for whether Derifield and the company will find middle ground is yet to be seen. While Better Call 4 couldn’t get the two sides to come to a solution, we did find that the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel handles concerns and issues with submetering companies. Better Call 4 passed that information along to Derifield.

And as for Derifield’s neighbors, Pioneer Energy Management said their bills were corrected as well, for underpaying.