2023-05-24 04:00:00
It’s a bad surprise, which Alexandre would have done without. Last month, he received his electricity bill as usual. But by opening the envelope, it is an amount of more than one million euros that the company Engie asks him to pay. A countdown then begins, to appeal, before it is debited.
At first glance, the story may make you smile. However, Alexandre, a resident of Herseaux (Mouscron) still has a few cold sweats: “When I tell this story around me, people often laugh. But if it was them who received a bill of one million euros, I think it would make them smile less. The feeling I felt when I opened the envelope, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone!“.
We are on Sunday April 30 when this Herseautois, realizes that his annual energy bill amounts to nearly 1,279,611.43 euros: “I couldn’t believe it, I thought it was a joke. I checked three times if it was a real letter from Engie. And then I had to read three more times to realize that I wasn’t hallucinating.“.
In the process, Alexandre addresses his first attempt to communicate with Engie, which ends in failure: “I directly called a contact number that I found on the bill and then came across a lady from customer service. She told me that she couldn’t do anything for me and that I had to wait for her to discuss it with her superiors. But what an idea! She told me that just after telling me that I had one week to appeal before being debited.“
It is then a real race against time that begins for Alexandre: “After two days, I saw that nothing was progressing. I contacted them again, telling them that if they did nothing, I was going to tell this story to the media. I don’t like to do that but I was completely helpless. I could already see the millions of euros being debited from my account, or else getting into legal proceedings. I didn’t sleep for two days, I was in really bad shape.“
It was only a few days later that he finally received the call for relief: “One of their collaborators called me to reassure me and tell me that I was not going to be debited. She then explained to me that it was a computer bug. I was reassured but I can tell you that the level of stress I had at that time, I have not forgotten it.
Contacted, Engie explains that the origin of the problem comes above all from the presence of solar panels in Alexandre’s house. The Walloon distribution network manager ORES was unaware of this. In question, a missing document, which would not have been encoded, and which would then have shaken up the energy calculations. The manager then counted the 998,000 kW displayed on the meter as positive and not as negative.
But for Alexandre, even if his bill is canceled and his story ends well, trust is broken: “I don’t trust them now. This time the amount was so high that it struck me right away. But imagine if every time there are errors. We say to ourselves that there may be errors of a few euros that go unnoticed.“As a precaution, and to avoid any fright, the Herseautois has withdrawn once and for all his domiciliation:”I won’t be fooled again!“
In all cases, Engie specifies that the invoice encoding process is subject to a reasonableness verification system. When the amount is much too high compared to the average of your invoices, it will theoretically be blocked, the time to check if everything is in order.
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