MONSTER BILL: Joy Banks with her shocking electricity bill.
WHEN Huskisson resident Joy Banks received an electricity bill for almost $30,000 yesterday, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her.
However, there in black and white was a bill from Origin Energy asking her to pay a grand total of $29,822.74.
“I showed my neighbours and I just wanted to make sure my eyes were not playing up,” Mrs Banks said.
“I then joked and said to them, ‘who is going to help me pay my bill?’”
“I am still in a bit of shock.”
Mrs Banks contacted her energy supplier and asked it to check its records because when you live in a one-room unit it would almost be impossible to use so much power.
In November last year Mrs Banks swapped from Integral to Origin and her mammoth bill was her first from her new electricity supplier.
She had been calling them asking for her bill for weeks.
“How silly am I? Asking people to send me a bill,” she said.
Getting answers from Origin had been difficult; previously she had to speak with eight people to get an answer.
A pensioner, Mrs Banks is frugal with her power usage.
She turns all electrical appliances off when they are not in use and only runs her fridge and hot water service constantly.
“I once had someone look at my power usage to see if I could save energy and they could not fault me,” she said.
Mrs Banks’ previous biggest bill was $237 from the winter period last year.
Yesterday, Mrs Banks hit the phones and two conversations later the situation was corrected.
Mrs Banks said Origin Energy knew there had been a mistake.
“It would have been nice if they called, said the bill was wrong and told me to ignore it,” she said.
Her correct account is in the process of being formalised.
A spokesperson for Origin Energy said the bill was incorrect due to a processing error.
The spokesperson apologised to Mrs Banks.