I am writing to you with deep concern, not only for myself and my elderly mother— but for all Rochesterians who use and trust the online meter reading system through Rochester Gas & Electric Company.


I will give you a short history of my tale that has led me to send this email and pursue media exposure and possible class action legal action against this crooked monopoly.


During 2020, I, like many others lost my job. As a single parent— I felt grateful for the unemployment stipend— but didn’t anticipate being out of work for almost a year. During this time, my daughter and I moved in with my aging parents. It was a win-win for us both: since we couldn’t qualify for a new lease without proof of employment— having steady housing was a blessing. My father was suffering from dementia and needed more support; I was able to help out with yardwork and home improvement tasks. Everyone benefitted.


Fast forward to our first energy bill. During COVID, RG&E estimated my parents’ bill and their monthly bills were in the $130 range. Affordable for 2 retirees on social security and one pension. Then, after a year, they requested a meter read— so I did what I had done in previous apartments: I took a picture of each meter and emailed it to the customer service email with the account number and account holder’s name. A few days later I received an email that my meter reading was received and I felt a sense of peace. I had assumed this meant a human had recorded the numbers and they would reflect in my parents’ next bill.


Fast forward to the next bill: and it is $100 more!!!! Yes, 2 more people were living in the house, but the energy usage wouldn’t have gone up that much. The meter read I sent was also reflecting the past month— when my parents were living solo. Needless to say, this stressed my parents out immensely. Being on a fixed income, they immediately got on the phone and waited the 45 minutes to an hour most people have to wait to speak to a human on the line and were told that the meter read sent meant that RG&E was underestimating my parents’ bill. Thus, they tacked an extra $800 onto the next bill to reflect what they underpaid last year— and tacked it onto a “payment plan”. My mom started sobbing.

As I was not an account holder, I was unable to speak to a customer service agent on their behalf. I continued to send in the picture readings for them— assuming it would balance out. It went up. And kept going up.


Fast forward to today: as I sit in my new apartment that has its own RG & E account. Because my apartment has baseboard heating, I called the energy company to find out the estimated monthly bill before renting. They told me it was $84. I thought that sounded reasonable. After a month of inhabiting my new— albeit rather small one-bedroom apartment, I have to call RG&E again because I can’t access my online account and I didn’t get an email that my meter reading was received. After my hour-long wait— the customer service and billing representative tells me some very disconcerting news that inspired me to write to the media.


She said, and I quote: “Don’t send meter readings in through email or the app— they normally don’t work and end up messing up people’s bills. Your best bet is to call them between 7 and 8 am when you won’t have to wait. Do that a few times and then you can call in can do it through the automated system when you feel comfortable with sharing the meter reads.”


I literally couldn’t speak for a moment. I was in complete shock. My jaw dropped. I remember seeing news stories and reading local articles about people with thousands of dollar bills beside themselves. Was this why?!?!


I bluntly asked her, If your online system isn’t working, why are you still having people use it? Isn’t that just messing up people’s bills?


“Yes,” she said, very matter-of-factly. I knew she was low on the totem poll, I knew I had to go somewhere big with this information. I was literally shaking inside when I hung up the call.


Okay, she gave me the secret, but what about the thousands of Rochesterians that don’t know and continue to use the app or send in pictures and are overpaying as my parents did— and still are?!


My deep concern here is: how are they justifying this glitch? Their system is archaic. They don’t have the manpower to update it— and they are letting things go on in a crooked way so that good people suffer. People on fixed budgets are forgoing basic needs for heat. It is not right. If this doesn’t speak class action lawsuit, I don’t know what does!?


It seems like we would benefit from some undercover reporting of the issue or an inside whistleblower. I am personally going to take this information down to the Waring road location and see what can be done to rectify my mother’s energy bill now that she is a widow. My father passed away during this process and this is one more stressor she doesn’t need.


One final fact I will share: this representative also shared with me that the best thing to do was let them read my meter in lieu of sending in email or app readings. And the budget she quoted me: over $200 for my apartment! She told me the previous representative was reading information from my last apartment. My latest energy bill (and I haven’t sent in meter readings because now I don’t trust their system AT ALL) was $274!!! At this point, I am going to have to move, as this cost, coupled with my rent is way beyond my single parent budget. I’m counting pennies as it is in my daily life!


In sum: what is going on there is a mess— from poorly trained customer service reps—to perhaps being understaffed (but definitely not underfunded) and technologically in the dark ages.


What happened to the NYS Green Initiative? I don’t know about you— but I’m ready to jump on the solar power train. This big bully has to be stopped. It’s going to take more than one voice. You with me?

I have been getting astronomical bills for a 700sqft apartment that has been EMPTY since July 2022. Over $300 some months with ZERO credits the next. My online account has been suspended and every time I call I receive rude and inaccurate information. Transfers from one person to another back to the original, refusals to speak to the supervisor. Finally I was able to shut off the service but got zero communication when it was done or how they entered the building since they don’t have a key. It’s absolutely disgusting how they are gauging individuals and blatantly lying about it.

Hello, our story has been an ongoing one for some time. In August we decided to try out their budget billing. They estimated our monthly budget to be approximately $273.00. But we have not been charged this amount as agreed. I had to call them at least once or twice a month to try and get things straightened out. Each month we’ve been billed over the budget amount and this past week we ended up paying over $600.00 for gas and electric. I was on the phone for over 3 hours with customer service to find out that our usage was actually cheaper than our budget amount and I was assured that if I paid the excessive bill for December I would receive credit back next month if I went off budget billing. So, I agreed to pay. Today I received a late notice email and after canceling my budget billing I was charged the $273.00 even after I paid my bill! I am beyond frustrated with their system and their inability to resolve problems after spending multiple hours on the phone month after month! Our house is not big either. We own a ranch style home and a few years ago we installed a new energy efficient furnace and air conditioner.

Good afternoon my story is RG&E is charging me for a bill for August 2020, but I move to the resident in 09/2021. They are telling me it’s my problem, but how can they estimate me in 2020 and I moved in 2021. I need some answers but my bill from November to December 2022 is $749 and some change .

For some reason, RG&E didn’t send me any bills over the summer even though I’m on budget billing at around $90/mo. Suddenly, in September, I received a $400 bill. I was surprised but paid it. Then, it October, a $630 bill. I thought there must be a mistake (I live in a small apartment and didn’t use any gas over the summer) and called. I was on hold for, of course, almost an hour. When I did talk to someone, she couldn’t help me and referred to another department. A woman in that department said there was no mistake, I owed RG&E about $1200 because they had been under-billing me (news to me!) She said I would pay this off over the next two months and then budget billing would be reduced again in January, 2023. However, in November, I did not receive an invoice or bill to pay. Confused, I called them again. Again, an hour on the phone!! It took a long time to explain the situation to a representative, who said that I owed a late fee for missing my payment, but she agreed that no invoice had been sent and my online account was saying I owed $0. I asked how I could possibly pay an invisible bill. She said I would have to talk to a different department, so I was on the phone again for 45 minutes on hold. I had to hang up because I had to get back to work (I work full-time, I don’t have 2-3 hours per day to be on hold with RG&E). I called back after work and finally got through to someone else who told me that, lo and behold, the $1000 bill was a mistake after all! RG&E overcharged me $1000!! However, she said I will have to wait 2-3 weeks to hear from them because ANOTHER department has to go back in time to correct the erroneous billing from the last few months. I have no confidence that this will actually be resolved and definitely expect that I’ll have to waste another several hours on the phone with them in a few weeks. In the meantime, if they shut my power off because I didn’t pay an invisible bill for money that I don’t actually really owe them, I will be very, very upset. I was so angry today that I texted a friend who told me Metro Justice already has a campaign to get us a public utility. This is so needed. I hope the city and county pay attention!

We received a bill for $47 in October and a letter that said our meter was estimated and no one had been by to read the meter. We were credited for our previous 3 bills due to this. The next month we received a hill for over $1100. We are being told that noone read our meter for the last year (even though we submitted a few times) and that when they came to read our meter in September they saw they under estimated it and that it the difference of the underestimate. They also tried to tell my husband that the gas meter was read which did not happen since it is inside our basement and we did not approve anyone in our home. We usually average $180-$250 a month so being that far off does not make sense. Now we are expected to pay a large bill for the lack of RG&E s organization.

Confusing $3,000 credit followed by almost daily bills ultimately resulting in $1,300 balance due.

I am a 67-year-old disabled senior with an open complaint against RG&E with NYS PSC, and I qualify for special protections under the law. RG&E just violated my rights and NYS PSC orders and just put me and my property under serious jeopardy by shutting my gas service off yesterday without any warning. They need to be replaced immediately!!!!

I’ve had 3 appointments scheduled since July to get my gas turned on after getting the necessary repair they said i needed to make and no one has yet to show up. I’ve even took those days off to make sure someone was there. I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of times I’ve called and the amount of hours I’ve spent on hold to only get disconnected. I went to the Warring road office only to discover that it was permanently closed. I’m really frustrated because the weather is getting colder and I’m afraid my pipes may burst and I’ll be left paying for the repairs. But what really frustrates me the most is that I’m getting billed every month for estimated gas charges. MY GAS IS NOT ON RG&E!!! WHY AM I GETTING BILLED?!?!?!

Does RG&E realize that many financially challenged families in Rochester, will have to decide between food and fuel this winter! Does RG&E really care at all about customer service at all? If they were sincere, RG&E would be creating local customer service centers to answer questions and assist people with complicated billing concerns.


Instead, their outreach centers on Waring Road and West Avenue have actually closed down. Now customers must wait on the phone for hours with an out of town answering service, that hardly even know what they are talking about! We have in essence become RG&E hostages with no place else to go.


At one time RG&E was truly a Rochester company, with all our electric coming from nearby Russell Station, Beebee Station and the Ginna Nuclear Plant. Now we are dependent and at the mercy of a foreign Spanish company, who probably never even heard of Rochester, NY. This is a serious security problem which should be investigated by Federal Government.

Does RG&E realize that many financially challenged families in Rochester, will have to decide between food and fuel this winter! Does RG&E really care at all about customer service at all? If they were sincere, RG&E would be creating local customer service centers to answer questions and assist people with complicated billing concerns.


Instead, their outreach centers on Waring Road and West Avenue have actually closed down. Now customers must wait on the phone for hours with an out of town answering service, that hardly even know what they are talking about! We have in essence become RG&E hostages with no place else to go.


At one time RG&E was truly a Rochester company, with all our electric coming from nearby Russell Station, Beebee Station and the Ginna Nuclear Plant. Now we are dependent and at the mercy of a foreign Spanish company, who probably never even heard of Rochester, NY. This is a serious security problem which should be investigated by Federal Government.

I appreciate what you guys are doing. Always Monopoly is no good. I’m glad people like you stood up for the Rochester community. I fully support you.

I have not heard from RGE since May. I tried calling and emailing them. I have not paid anything and I am concerned if they will shut off my utilities in the middle of winter.

We received an $800 extra charge because RGE didn’t read our gas meter for over a year, now we’re on a payment plan to pay it off. After we called to ask how this happened, they increased the bill even more to $936. We’re still trying to pay this off with our monthly bills. It’s insane and ridiculous to expect people to be able to afford this on top of their regular bills.

RG&E charged me 522$ for aug-sept bill when my normal charges are under 100$ my normal usage is around 300kw but they said I used 3500kw in a month when half of the month due to work I’m not at my apartment. Tried getting an explanation but I get no answers due to the 2hr+ hold times. I would totally understand if they weren’t reading the meters over the months and back charging me , but saying I used 3500kw in a 1 bed 1 bath apartment in a single month is not right.

They never read the meter, the technology is horrible, frequent power outages and just a month or so ago I received a $513 bill, that’s insane!!!

I moved out of Rochester, and actually out of NY state. 1 year later, I see an email from credit karma letting me know that my name is with a collections agency for a $40 debt from RG&E. Long story short, they had “undercharged me” apparently for a bill, while I was living there. After I moved, they caught the mistake and charged me the difference. They didn’t email or call or text. They simply put a notification on my account. To which I had to ask the customer service operator “How often do you check the accounts you’ve closed 1 year after you’ve closed them?” And why wouldn’t anyone email me. I spent 6 weeks calling the collections agency and RG&E. The collections agency was my saving grace as they helped me figure out how to dispute the claim. RG&E was HORRIBLE. They’d say “you should just tell the agency XYZ and they’ll take care of it” and the agency would say “they told you that you can just tell us to waive the debt? They need to call us directly” Then I had to call RG&E every few weeks to check if they had filed it as a mistake so it could be removed from my credit.

I should say, it is not the front line employees who are the problem! They are doing their best underneath some terrible management and even worse corporate polices.

Have been getting higher than usual bills. At times they have charged for two months in one bill. I read my meter so I don’t get estimates. Have had them enter my read wrong. Called with new reading after high bill , guess I read it wrong, took 4 calls before I got a new bill.

It’s fairly simple: RG&E, in one month’s billing time, raised my utility bill from $146 to $728. I called to find out what exactly was going on and a couple things happened… 1) The customer service rep was quite flustered and didn’t give me much to go on other than what’s been reported since March of 2022 and that I was billed for two months of gas usage – 2) I found out that my billing or meter or whatever are listed as Commercial and Non-Residential. So, I was transferred to the meter changing department and was facing an hour and a half wait time. No thanks. It’s something to experience this for the first time in years and not in a good way. It’s completely unreasonable, what they’re doing.

They revised my bill a year after it was paid. Lost a 10k credit and then billed me 4500$ more half a month. My bill has never been over 1200$ a month.

My rental had the tenants move out Nov 2031 and I put RG&E in my name to re due the kitchen. 5 month later, no work was completed by my lazy ass and I have a 450$ bill. No heat on, no laundry machines, maybe just a light on and off here.

Down with the horrible monopoly!

I am tired of the same excuse all the time “Bill for 2 months because there’s a problem with the meter or just call every month to verified your readings are correct.” Enough I want to use a different company.

Bill for 2 months b/c of problem with meter per rge I read it every month and send it in

Bills that we cant pay, no explanation

List 4 months my bills came very hight I called them they not really help me !! I wish if anther company can run the electricity beside Rg!!

Like the cellphone company’s !!