A Richmond Hill woman says she is being unfairly threatened with bill collectors by her local electricity distribution company for its mistake.

Tai Speakman said PowerStream suddenly withdrew almost $700 from her account in February after billing her no more than $47 a month for more than a year at her Yonge St. rental unit.

When she demanded to know why, she said PowerStream told her that they had been undercharging her and were now determined to collect.

“These guys are bullies,” Speakman told the Toronto Sun Wednesday.

Daniel Miller, Director of Operations for PowerStream Energy Services, said the company was unable to provide information on a specific account without customer consent.

“We are trying to work with this customer as best we can and continue to try to do so,” Miller said in an e-mail.

Speakman said the utility has made no attempts to resolve the situation except by notifying her that she now had to come up with $795 in five days.

“That statement from them is laughable at best,” she said.

Speakman provided documentation that showed she had been routinely paying roughly $40 per bill through a pre-authorized payment plan.

Suddenly in February, a much larger bill arrived and PowerStream removed $693.26 from her account, Speakman said.

After speaking to her bank, Speakman said the funds were withdrawn from PowerStream and now the utility is threatening to send her to debt collection, a move that would likely hurt her credit rating.

“Their explanation when we called them was they made a billing mistake in their multiplier for the last year and a half and they wanted to collect,” Rob Shver, Speakman’s boyfriend, said. “I explained to the girl at customer service, ‘You guys made a mistake. You need to eat it. You can’t come to me a year later and say, ‘Oh, I made a mistake for the last year — pony up.’”

The snafu reminded him of the Hydro One billing fiasco that led to a full-blown Ontario ombudsman’s investigation and an overhaul of that agency.

If you buy a banana, the grocery store doesn’t come back a year later demanding more money because of a pricing error, Shver said.