Pay no attention to that Peco past-due notice
Peco erroneously sent out notices to many customers that their bills were past due. A social media storm ensued.
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Here’s a way to wake up the region on a drowsy summer afternoon: Send out a mass e-mail warning customers that their electric bills are overdue, even if their accounts are in order.
Peco, the Philadelphia utility with 1.6 million electric customers, sent out electronic messages to a scad of customers Monday afternoon under the jarring headline, “You Can Reduce Your Past Due PECO Bill.”
“Dear Customer,” the email began. “Our records show that you have a past due balance with Peco.”
So, did we all just get an email from PECO that our bills are past due?
— Lauren Hallden (@phillylauren) August 22, 2022
Social media lit up with snark from angry and confused customers who had fully paid their electric bills. So many people called Peco’s customer service phone line that the company’s automated reply estimated it would take two hours to respond. Peco’s website, peco.com, slowed to a crawl.
It didn’t help that the past-due notice went out just after Peco issued very large bills for July, when energy usage was high because of the relentless heat.
» READ MORE: Energy bills are high and not coming down soon. Here are ways to cut costs.
About two hours after the email barrage, a notice went up on Peco’s home page: “Past due balance emails were sent in error today. You can check your current balance online through PECO’s MyAccount. If you are not past due, please disregard the notice.”
In an email, Peco did not identify the source of the glitch or the number of customers impacted.
“We are aware of the message regarding past due balances that was sent to some customers in error,” the company said in a statement. “The message was intended to reach those customers with past due balances to remind them of their balance, inform them of payment options, and connect them with financial assistance programs.
“We are currently working to pause the message to ensure it does not reach any further unintended recipients. Once we identify the issue, we will notify customers who were impacted in error. We are also posting information about the message sent in error on peco.com and our customer care hotline.”