Posted but burried on reddit as well: Looking for both advice and maybe legal advice as well if anyone knows someone. Maybe some of you are also looking into this as well.


Try this. They sent me a bill for over 4k this month. I called about it. They said it was an issue and would ifx it and call me back. They never did. So, I called constellation. Theybsaid rge canceled my last 8 bills (7 already paid) and then just pretty much said the 4 meter reads their techs did were all lies so they had to adjust it in the office to fit their narrative. They said this in different words, but they pretty much said it. Took us 3 hours and 4-5 “disconnections” today alone to speak with whoever the hell “Mr. Wright” is. Apparently he’s the big cheese in the Binghamton call center? Don’t know how we can’t just make an appointment at the local offices to speak with someone in person.


Anyways, this man cut me off at every turn of the corner and wouldn’t answer my questions, would gonoff in a tangent about some other non issue on our bill. When I would repeat the question he would say he’s not going over it again and diligently tried to get us to start a payment plan. This is all after a month of calling to figure this out. Every time we called the bills were further altered and more convoluted. Like sending a bill from them and constellation then considering it late, compiling the bill as a forwarded balance and sending it as a new bill. Truth is, they claim we have owed constellation hundreds of dollars every month. Constellation, on the other hand says that, other than the most recent/ disputed bill, we haven’t ever owed them more than like 104 a month. They were shocked because on the new bills that rge corrected (after 4 actual in person reads that I was there for) represented that in the last 6 months we somehow used the exact same amount of energy every other month. How that is possible is an anomaly to me. Like to the exact kwh.


Remember, all of these bills were canceled and reissued the same day I spoke to them on the phone about this for the first time.


I have almost every phone call recorded with conflicting information. I have almost every paper bill. I have video footage of their agents in my yard taking the meter readings that they now say we’re never taken. This is amongst other evidence and proof. Not tonwear a tin foil hat or anything…


I wish you all the best.

I moved into an apartment in October of 2022. It is a duplex, of which I had the top half. I paid RG&E reliably even though some of the numbers certainly seemed off – bill hikes even though we no longer were using an in-window AC unit, seemingly random KW hour bumps, etc. All was the usual level of frustration and inconsistency fitting with their reputation until late 2023, when I was slapped with an over $1,500 bill.


They had not checked the meter since summer of 2021, over a year before I moved in and insisted that I was liable for the previous tennent’s fees. It is important to note that the meter is not accessible to us, as it is in the basement and therefore in our downstairs neighbors’ rented space. It took numerous hours on the phone, multiple refusals of their default setting “Sorry, there’s nothing I can do, you’re just going to have to pay”, and finally getting a manager to admit that it was not fair for me to pay for someone else’s year of electricity overages for them to only make me pay a part of the total. I was still peeved, but content that I wasn’t footing all of the bill on an entry-level 20yr old’s income. Less than a month later I was hit with another huge bill, not coincidentally, stating it was from right when I moved in and they had missed it for over a year?… yeah, sure.


I know how scary debt can be, so I will always pay what I owe before budgeting for groceries and fun. My wardrobe is mostly hand-me-downs and work provided polos, we don’t go out more than monthly, and the only thing we regularly splurge on is higher-end dog food, but that’s $80 over the course of a few weeks. I have never missed a payment for RG&E, nor any other major bills like insurance, rent, T-Mobile, or my car, so I just don’t understand how this can happen. Their monopoly over Rochester and surrounding areas needs to be broken. If I can impart any advice to those looking to move here, make sure your home is supplied by Fairport Electric – the area is on the rise and rent may be climbing so I wish you luck, but it’s certainly worth it to be RG&E free.

The billing issues with RGE began last fall when I moved to a new address. I was/am happy to be in a place where I can now read the meter myself as opposed to the building where I lived previously.


My father worked for RGE for over 30 years before he retired in 1994. He started as a meter reader and then spent the remainder of his career in customer service at the main office on East Avenue. I share this information when I contact RGE about billing errors, because I want it to be clearly understood that I KNOW how a.) to read a meter and how b.) customers are supposed to be treated. I learned both things from my father as well as his former RGE co-workers.


Now it seems as though there is little to no accountability when it comes to generating accurate bills or to correcting costly billing errors. After months and months and months of repeated complaints to RGE (in-person, via email, and telephone), I was finally issued a $400+ credit to my account that I cannot yet say covers the full extent of overpayments due to billing errors since September of last year.


I am certain the only reason I received the credit is because I read the meter myself every month, and when I do, I take a photo of both gas and electric meters as well as a screenshot of the reading that I actually submit online to RGE, both before and after I hit “Enter.” Doing so has created consistent irrefutable documentation of my actual monthly energy usage that comes in handy like it did recently when RGE over-billed me, yet again, by 1020 kWh.


I suspect the fact that I also cc’d Congressman Morelle’s office in on the last email to RGE helped, that and the fact that I made a point of mentioning my conversation with a member of the Congressman’s staff concerning the ongoing issues with billing during my most recent telephone conversation with an RGE customer service representative.


Yesterday RGE installed “smart meters” at the house that are supposed to give me “more control over [my] monthly bills.” Somehow, I know that, despite the new meters, RGE will still manage to over-bill me and others. With that in mind, I have no intention of changing my monthly practice of reading the meters myself, capturing images, and calculating actual usage to keep RGE in check.

I moved out of a residence a little over a year ago. I was going through a lot at that point with my employer at the time going through bankruptcy and adjusting to living at a new place. As time went on I forgot altogether about RG&E because they NEVER sent me a final bill or tried to contact me at any point. Imagine the anger when I received a bill from a collection agency a few days ago. NYS PSC needs to strip Avangrid / RG&E of their franchise in Rochester and give it to National Grid.

I moved out of a residence a little over a year ago. I was going through a lot at that point with my employer at the time going through bankruptcy and adjusting to living at a new place. As time went on I forgot altogether about RG&E because they NEVER sent me a final bill or tried to contact me at any point. Imagine the anger when I received a bill from a collection agency a few days ago. NYS PSC needs to strip Avangrid / RG&E of their franchise in Rochester and give it to National Grid.

I am a public school teacher and I had always chosen budget billing to keep my utility costs consistent and predictable during the summer months when I don’t have income. But in the past year, billing has been completely inconsistent. And even though I have autopay set up and money keeps being taken from my account, when I check online I get messages about being at risk for losing budget billing for missed payments (even though I’m not being charged my budget billing amount, or on consistent days of the mont). I constantly worry that I’m going to miss payments or get hit with a huge bill out of nowhere. RG&E outsourcing their business office and billing has been a disaster and people with no other options are stuck with unreliable service and being taken advantage of in a way that shows RG&E is no longer invested in serving the people of Rochester.

Extremely inconsistent billing. Often receive bills twice in one month and then nothing for two months. I have turned on auto pay multiple times to help make sure I don’t miss these spiritic bills. Then autopay is randomly shut off for no reason and now I have missed payments. I have bills that show multiple months of usage on one bill. I have called and messaged about tree limbs on lines and lines that have been pulled off my house and no response at all.

They have stolen more than 25 thousand dollars from me and I want it back.

In December 2023, RGE read my gas meter. It is now April 12, 2024. I took a picture of my meter and went to call in the numbers. The woman that I spoke with told me that that must not be right. She said they had me at using 85 and now I’m at 1100(More than a years worth of heat)

I told her that I had been reading my meter for the majority of the last 25 years and that I knew that I was reading it accurately, but that that was completely impossible. I have one gas furnace, and one hot water heater and no other gas appliances, I keep my heat at 68 or below at all times I always have.

Having that picture of my meter I thought was going to protect me and now I see that I am actually hurting myself by simply giving them an accurate picture. I Have no idea where to turn at this point By her calculations I will owe thousands of dollars and I could not pay this if I wanted to.

Like many of you I am scared and confused how they are able to get away with this.

I’m trying to be proactive. I don’t know what else to do.

We never had any problems with RG&E until about Three months ago. We began receiving Bills back to back. For an example we received a bill that due April 18th today we received a another bill that due for April 22th. Last month we spoke to a customer service rep who told us it was a billing error and that it would be fix. We are seniors and live on fix incomes we can’t afford to pay for double bills which are extremely higher than previous bills. I would like to add for years I read my meter and never had a problem until they installed the smart meters.

Feb. Gas Bill is to HIGH!!!

I always use my phone to photograph my meter readings before I submit them. I don’t track their values month to month. I just submit them. On average my winter gas usage is around 170 therms 200 max. When I go the last build it stated I used 1200 therms, which is almost equivalent of what I used for all of last year. Reviewing the photographs I see that the January reading was 9795 while the February reading was 0995. We only use gas for heating the home , on demand hot water, and stove top cooking. Is it possible that there was a mechanical failure at rollover and the middle two digits never zeroed out? We had done nothing different during that time period to cause the usage of that much gas.

Unfortunately I now have a new, personal challenging RG&E meter read-billing error story about being overcharged for multiple apartments in January 2024, and still not resolved in April 2024.

The typical monthly bill in one apartment in our owner-occupied house where I am one of the landlords and hold the account, was overcharged 8+ times, $350 instead of $35-$45. Another apartment was overcharged 4+ times, and another apartment, was not billed because of meter reading discrepancies. All these errors because the field staff person reading the meter read many or all of our meters incorrectly, ugh! I always read the meters and send them every month, but the RGE staff person overrides my readings for billing!

Would you share my story, RG&E quick to bill and slow or hesitant to refund? You know, that is my error, RG&E would likely have quickly sent a shut off notice!

Thank you for supporting the effort to find a study for a public utility!

Sincerely -Ed

I moved out of an apartment in June of 2022. I paid all of my bills, and everything was normal. I confirmed with my landlord that everything was as it should be as far as all the utilities. In September of 2023, I got a letter from a collections agency for an unpaid utility at that old address for the month of August 2022, after I had moved out. I had no letters calls emails or anything from RGE or the landlord prior to that, so it was quite a surprise. I tried talking to RGE or the collections agency for a long time, but it was just too insufferable and I eventually just paid the collections. So I got an unpaid utility on my credit and I had to pay an extra months gas and electric for a time where I didn’t even live there, and it was effectively impossible to contact anybody about the error.

We used to pay $150 a month and now we’re paying anywhere from $500-$900 a month just to keep our power on and we’re in debt to them. When we first started our accounts we didn’t receieve a bill OR any account information for 2 months. I contacted them and they had put the account back into the landlords name 2 hours after switching it to ours. We owed $700 for our FIRST bill because of THEIR mistake. The last amount I paid was almost $900 and 2 weeks later I get a bill olfor almost $500… This is has been so financially strenuous and we cannot keep doing this.

RGE is a legalized SCAM. NEVER in my life living any other state, including Connecticut, the most expensive state in the union, have I ever found a need to contact my utility provider about a billing issues. Moved back to Monroe County recently and being asked to set aside $5,000 a year to pay for utilities here? Are you kidding me? What kind of localized EXTORTION is this? I feel sorry for the elderly and those who can’t speak the language who can’t stand up and ask from protection from this legalized SCAM and monopoly we call Rochester Gas And Electric.

I have had incorrect RG&E bills for 2 yrs now. At one point, It got corrected, then happened again September 2023.Every month, I get a bill for $0, I call and explain that can’t be right, and new bills are sent, but I’m not sure those amounts are right. Last month I was billed twice for the same usage. As of now I’m current, waiting to see what happens next month.

I’ve been consistently billed for amounts well over $200 dollars (I’m a single person, living in a small apartment – there’s minimal electrical use ) for about a year now. Most recently, RG&E is charging me $690~ because I haven’t paid since the June-July, but according to my bank records, I most certainly have. A bill sent my way in the month of January was $268~ – how could I suddenly owe 3x that amount? There’s no possible way I utilized enough energy to warrant a $268 charge in the first place. And sure, there was even a period of two-three months where no bill was sent to me at all , but why should I have to pay (literally) for their mistake? I couldn’t have payed those missing bills, I wasn’t given a choice.

I’d switch providers if I could.

Why do I receive a text message saying that I have until Feb 2 to submit my meter reading, yet when I go online or call to do it on Feb 1, they say they cannot accept it? This is not right!

My rg&e bill is normally 120.00 my kwh was low for the month of December I received a bill for 800.00 my kwh quadrupled and the month of January another one bill for 650.00 with the kwh being tripled that month. I live in a tiny 2 bedroom in near Lyell and lake ave my rent is only 925.00 I make only 2,000 a month how am I suppose to live . Rg&e says take it up with my landlord. My landlord says take it up with rg&e I’m gonna be homeless next month . The new meter was installed this past August.

I switched over to the smart electric meter in November. My kwh usage according to RG&E has triple the past 3 months. Triple what my usage had been the past 17 years in my house with no changes to energy usage.

RGE has been a God send for my family. During our struggles they have worked with us on our bills and kept it so we would not be out in the cold, literally. Thank you RGE for being an upstanding company and caring about your customers!

RG+E will go several months without billing me, and then retroactively charged me for those months in my next boll. Of course that left me with only a month to pay it, and the amount owed was HUGE!

HI im a mother of 2 and expecting me and my partner have been struggling for years to pay a old bill that is over 9 years old and they refuse to take off that amount, so we were told to be put on budget billing now in order to even go on budget billing we had to come up with 495.00 dollars just to to start and couldnt get an amount any lower than that even though we couldnt afford it, so we had to burrow the money so we were put on a budget and our budget is 395.00 a month we cant afford it we get no assistance everything is paid out of pocket and i now only work partime due to not being able to afford any child care. now im getting termination notices asking us to pay the full amount which is 2,624.85 is insane. How do they expect us to pay that in just a week. Both of my children are under 18 and me and my oldest son has asthma how are we supposed to live in the cold if i cant pay.

I didn’t receive a bill from RGE for over a year, they told me there was some computer error, after a long wait on the phone, and they said to just keep sending them the approx $ each month. I sure didn’t send them a dime until I waited and waited wondering what the heck is going on here, and what is my bill going to actually look like when it finally arrives. This felt like a new level of ineptitude, and what is my other option? Leave the grid? Well maybe.

I was renting a mobile home in Sterling and I had R,G,E as my power company is was back in 2022to 2023 .I paid my January bill so My sons family was going to Florida on winter recess and invited us to go so we left in February and came back and my power bill was high but no one was home in Febuary and the amount is $6,9270 which is high for a mobile home and it’s all electric and I tired to talk to some one from R.G.E and explain it that it wasn’t right and that it was too high but they said it was right and there was nothing wrong and I had to pay the bill well I work and try to survive and pay my other bills and it’s hard because I went from a bus driver to were I was making $27.50 to $15.00 dollars a hr

I have a rge account like everyone in rochester and have been getting a extra charge for not changing to a “smart meter” but well me and my wife work all day like most people and are not home when rge wants to come change this meter. I read my meter thru the app and they refuse to make a weekend date to change it.. I feel like I can’t win with this and feel like I’m being over charged even more now.. can anyone help me !! Idk what to do any have tried countless times to try and get this resolved

I own a multi-rental property. I had a tenant residing in the property. That tenant had active RGE services. When that tenant moved out, I did not have a new tenant to move into the property. I advised RGE to disconnect the services. I was offered the ability to put the services in my name. I refused that request since I did not plan to use the property for awhile. Instead of disconnecting the services from the previous tenant, RGE transferred my tenants old bill to my name and activated new services in my name. I did not request services. I did not sign any documentation agreeing to services. However, services were initiated in my name and a bill has been accumulating. I refuse to pay the bill because I did not request or authorize the services to be initiated. RGE refuses to disconnect the services. Instead, they continue to bill me for the service even though I have not paid the bill. Its shocking to me that this is occurring since there are people living in this community that cannot afford to keep their RGE services active who have their services terminated on a regular basis for non payment. I assumed since I never requested or authorized the services to be turned on in my name, the bill wouldnt go anywhere. The bill has now shown up on my credit report. I am prepared to file a claim against RGE in small claims court.

I wasn’t billed by RGE for about 6 months starting around last winter in I think January or February. I had heard stories of this but wasn’t too concerned and just put money aside for when I had to pay. After about 6 months my total was $1400 or so which did sound high but not too high. I’m on auto-pay so it charged me with no issue. Unfortunately my regularly timed bill also came due in the same timeframe for over $1500 which included a month that the original bill didn’t. Still on auto-pay so I figured that it would automatically take out the amount I paid from that. How dumb I was to think it would work properly. We can all see where this is going – I get charged an additional $1500 through auto-pay. I quickly contact customer service and am told it’s a mistake. A higher up (manager maybe?) let’s me know it’s an issue with billing and auto-pay. They say that I should hear back in a week with a refund or status of one. Sometime into week 2 I give them a call, they don’t know what happened to it and will follow up. Another week with no follow up, I give them another call with essentially the same response. Finally, after a month of being short $1500, I talk to the 4th representative who says that it should be in the mail within the week and the week after I get a check. RGE had $1500 of mine that absolutely did not belong to them and waits over a month to get it to me. I definitely made mistakes and assumptions but that still does not allow them to do this. If I was close to poverty this would have made my month a hell. Instead I have to constantly call to get anyone to give me the money they took from me.


For us to get this level of service all while they make a profit off us is absolutely sickening to me. I can’t go to anyone else for energy if I wanted. We’re entirely captive to their whims and bullshit and I’m sick of it.

Last fall I started noticing our RGE bills were significantly higher than normal. I started reading our meter and our bills halved. They still would send a meter reader every other month & I noticed there reads were very different than mine and I had mine backed up with photos. After calling RGE several times , sending my photos with my read figures, I asked why the discrepancy ? And they would state “he must’ve read it wrong”! I got sick of hearing this so in May I signed up for the customer read only program. Then in June I was sent a bill for $11,257.00!!!! Thankfully I wasn’t on autopay!!! Of course I called and they said it was because we read our meter and shortly after their reader came and submitted another set of numbers. So I sent on my pics and they corrected it but why were they still sending their readers when I signed up to read my own meter? I called and they said they made a mistake and signed me up that I would read my gas meter only. Ugh! So they corrected that to show both electric & gas are customer read only. Except they still kept sending their readers and they still kept mis reading the meter and I got more apologies. Now it’s mid October and I chased their meter reader away and called RGE. Now they tell me that I signed up for customer read only program for every other month! Does this make any sense??? Do they not understand the meaning of the word only? They tried to talk me into the smart meter which she said would resolve the mis read problems. So I asked them what the $11.56 opt out fee was for since I heard it was because they need to send meter readers to houses that don’t have one. They said no, it was to cover any billing errors or mis reads on the old meters. Well I’m reading my meter with photos. Then a manager told me that the fee was to cover any repair or replacement of my meter. But the customers with the smart meters don’t have this charge to replace or repair their meters. Not logical! If my meter breaks, bill me for the repair don’t collect for a what if situation. I think it’s more to penalize those that won’t take the new meter. And since I do not trust the company, I will not give them control by installing the smart meters. I don’t think we have seen yet what problems will arise from these.

I cannot get accurate information from customer service and it took 5 phone calls just to make sure the customer read only program is correct on my account. We will see if s reader comes next month….I’m not confident that he won’t.

I been trying to save money on everything. From groceries to school clothes to school supplies and everything else that will help me make ends meet. So the Covid snap program has expired. So I reduce everything possible as far as energy and gas consumption. So I got one bill for the month of July for$125.87 due to me not using gas and pretty much just using fans do to the cold summer we had this year. So how do I get a August bill for over $420 if I’m not using any resources. We as consumers should be notified weekly of usage of electricity and gas weekly or daily to help consumers make better informal decisions. We should be able to see how much electricity and power we use on the daily. Can someone please help me get this watts vs x times p equal = I created my own analysis every month!!!