World News | Puerto Rico to Probe Power Bill Complaints Following Outage
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Puerto Rico's Energy Bureau announced on Thursday that it will investigate how a private company has handled complaints about electric bills after Hurricane Fiona knocked power out to the entire island.
San Juan (Puerto Rico), Oct 14 (AP) Puerto Rico's Energy Bureau announced on Thursday that it will investigate how a private company has handled complaints about electric bills after Hurricane Fiona knocked power out to the entire island.
The announcement comes as a growing number of customers in the US territory complain about being charged for electricity when they didn't have power and receiving higher than normal power bills.
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The Independent Office of Consumer Protection urged the bureau last week to investigate difficulties in filing such complaints.
The bureau called on Luma Energy to immediately stop any practice that prevents consumers from objecting to bills via telephone or online, and to extend the deadline for clients to file their complaints, among other things.
It also demanded that Luma Energy submit evidence within 10 days that it was complying with the bureau's orders.
Luma said in a statement that during Hurricane Fiona and the state of emergency — as a way to prioritise critical calls — it implemented a temporary measure to direct billing inquiries only through its app, web portal, mail or in-person visits.
“As soon as the emergency passed, we resumed our normal operations, and customers have been able to discuss their bills by phone,” the company said.
Of Luma's 1.47 million clients, more than 8,800 remain without power almost a month after Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico's southwest region as a Category 1 storm.
Luma officials have noted that restoring power in part has been complicated by the crumbling state of Puerto Rico's grid, which was razed by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Reconstruction of the grid has only recently started.
Luma, which took over the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico more than a year ago, has faced growing criticism about lengthy outages that occurred frequently even before Fiona hit. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)