Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Customer beats Nevada Power

CARSON CITY — After a two-year effort, John Miletich has beaten Nevada Power Company even if it’s only for one or two cents a month.

Miletich complained to the state Public Utilities Commission that Nevada Power was not applying the correct mathematics to the bills of customers. It wasn’t for the penny or two, he maintained but to make sure the bill was correct.

After correspondence and meetings, Miletich filed a second protest. And the PUC issued a complaint.

Nevada Power and Miletich then reached a stipulation that was approved by the PUC Thursday. The utility will have its billing problem cleared up when it has all its “smart meters” installed by June of next year.

PUC Commissioner David Noble said the formula had to be cut off to fit on a customer’s bill. Once the smart meters are fully installed, the full statistics will be on the bill.

The fracas started when Miletich’s wife, Ann, first complained to the PUC in February 2009 that billing wasn’t right and was one to two cents in favor of the utility. Miletich followed it up with a written protest in April 2009.

Not satisfied with the answers of Nevada Power, Miletich brought a second written complaint in July 2010 charging the inaccurate formula needs to be corrected.

After a pre-hearing conference in August this year, Nevada Power and Miletich reached an agreement.

The incomplete formulas displayed on customer bills were caused when the correct underlying calculations contained differing decimal points and are rounded to be printed on the bill.

And Nevada Power will make changes to its billing system to standardize the number of decimal places used in a bill calculation and displayed on customer’s statements.

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