Ontario Ombudsman André Marin says long-suffering Hydro One customers are victims of “egregious errors and baffling bills” inflicted on them by an uncaring Crown corporation.

Marin announced Tuesday he is launching an investigation into Hydro One’s billing practices that result in cases of customers being billed thousands of dollars for unclear reasons.

“(There) are stories of huge unexplained catch-up bills, multiple bills or estimated bills with no rhyme or reason. And when customers try to get answers from Hydro One they are stymied just as my office has often been stymied when we intervened,” Marin told a Queen’s Park news conference.

“With Hydro One . . . we feel we get the runaround. Sometimes it’s like wrestling with a slippery pig and that’s why my heart goes out to those average citizens that try to take on the Goliath that is Hydro One,” he said.

Hydro One spokesperson Tiziana Baccega Rosa, acknowledged the level of service — the result of a $153.7-million customer system changeover in May — is “unacceptable.”

“We know we need to fix the mess and those plans are in place,” she said.

Hydro One is Ontario’s largest electricity company with about 1.3 million customers.

Jim and Lynn Ellis from Southgate Township, near Shelburne told the Star they know exactly what Marin is talking about.

After complaining in May about not getting bills, more than six months later they received a notice that they owed $3,477.57, due by Dec. 3. Two weeks later another arrived for $1,097.27.

Jim Ellis said his normal bill is $200 to $300 a month.

“I don’t think we were treated very well by the system at all,” he said, noting that whenever he tried to get answers he would have to deal with a different person at the Hydro One call centre.

Ellis said a Hydro One executive, who finally called at one point to apologize, told him there were “tens of thousands (of customers) in the same boat.”

“I’m angry that it’s a monopoly and you can’t seem to get (anywhere) with it,” he said.

“If there was an alternative, we’d be checking it out.”

Marin noted that complaints about Hydro One to his office have more than doubled since the fiscal year 2011-2012 when 232 complaints were received, which then grew to 328 in 2012-2013 and jumped to 600 between April 1, 2013 and now.

“This all points to a systemic problem that warrants an in-depth investigation by my special ombudsman’s response team,” he said, noting that the probe should take about nine months.

Toronto resident Jim MacLean, who owns a cottage north of Huntsville, said Hydro One installed a smart metre two years ago at his cottage and the provincially-owned utility has never once used it because there is no reliable cell connection.

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“Why would they even put them in if they can’t use it,” he said, noting that he keep getting bills “estimating” what his power consumption is.

Baccega Rosa acknowledged there “are areas where the meters can’t communicate — the actual infrastructure is just not there” but insists Hydro One hopes to eventually hook them up.

She said that of Hydro One’s customers, 3.2 per cent are still receiving frequent estimated bills. Another 2 per cent haven’t received any bill at all for more then 90 days.

Marin said part of his office investigation is to look at the transparency and reliability of the billing system.

“We are hearing from the public that they are quite prepared to be socially re-engineered as electrical trained seals doing their laundry at certain times to avoid excessive billing but on the other hand they want to be able to understand their billing, they want accuracy in their billing,” he said.

The ombudsman said a common complaint from customers is that they don’t get bills for months and months and “suddenly because they have direct withdrawal from the bank account, they wake up and their bank account is depleted and into their overdraft by $10,000, $20,000 . . . and then they can’t get through to Hydro One.”

And he said then there are the customers who have that much money “skimmed” off their bank account by error. “And in that case Hydro One will simply say ‘we can’t return the money, we will simply give you a future credit.’”

Baccega Rosa disputed that assertion, saying the provincial utility will refund the money and any related overdraft bank charges.

Marin said the whole thing is leaving a “bad taste in the mouths of the citizens of Ontario and that why we are going to look at those two issues.”

He described Hydro One’s response to questions from his office as “anemic.”

“We will be looking at whether that culture of public service is there at Hydro One or not and taking it from there.”

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