The EAC Nicosia complaints offices are being swamped with grievances, struggling to deal with the shear number of cases.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, an aggrieved EAC customer told of the situation she encountered when she was forced to go to the offices to chase up a complaint.
On entering the office, a lady behind the desk told her, “We’re very busy”, and holding up the stack of letters in the in-tray, added: “and this isn’t even half of it.”
Undeterred by the initial attempt to discourage her, the customer pressed the staff to look into her problem. However, she came up against a brick wall justified by the sheer weight of complaints that had to be dealt with.
However, when it became clear that the customer’s case was not in fact linked to the recent spate of complaints regarding over and under charging, the service became efficient. The customer was told that she would be contacted shortly, at which point the matter would be dealt with.
It is not yet clear exactly what the problem is that has caused so many people to have received extraordinarily high bills, often for periods when they have not even been living in the house for much of the time.
Petros Marcou of the Consumer Association has reported that they have received at least ten complaints over the past week regarding the ECA overcharging by as much as 100 per cent.
The EAC has so far been vague in explaining exactly what the problems are, generally citing late meter readings as the most probable reason for the high bills.
Marcou has been more forthcoming, explaining that the high bills are probably a combination of three factors. “Meters are being read late, sometimes fifteen days late. Because of the late readings, customers’ bills are greater and so they are put in a price bracket, i.e. you pay more per KWh. Finally, the oil prices have increased, so pushing up the price of electricity,” said Marcou
It seems that the Strovolos area of Nicosia has been most seriously affected, with the majority of complaints originating from there.
Yesterday, yet another EAC customer contacted the Cyprus Mail to tell what is quickly becoming an all too familiar story.
Sheila Humphreys went to England for six weeks during the summer, and, mindful of the possibility of being charged for electricity when she wasn’t there, made sure to turn off all the power and unplug all the appliances. However, on her return to Cyprus, Humphreys discovered that she had been charged £50 for two weeks’ worth of electricity usage. “I’m fairly sure that as my bill is usually £50 for two months, the same amount for two weeks is a bit much.”
This is not the first time that Humphreys has had trouble with the electricity authority. A couple of years ago, they missed a meter reading, and estimated her bill at £100. Again Humphreys was not in the country during this period. The money was eventually reimbursed two months later.
This suggests that the problems surrounding estimation may be surfacing again, although the EAC abandoned this policy a number of years ago.
The concerned customers will have to continue to wait for the results of an investigation to find out what has gone wrong.
