Household Received an Electricity Bill of Over $1K for July When It Has Always Been Less Than $100 Per Month

Recently, a Sembcorp Power customer received a shockingly hefty electricity bill of $1,916.39 for the month of July 2020.

And no, it is not because he used too much water washing his hands clean.

Here’s a breakdown of what happened.

Electricity Bill For July 2020 Is More Than An Entire Year’s Bills

On Aug. 25, the man, Chai See Yin posted a complaint regarding his exorbitant electricity bill on the Complaint Singapore Facebook group.

Backed up by an image of his bill, he said he was charged $1,016.39 by Sembcorp Power even though his usual monthly bill was between the range of $27.89 to $74.68.

To add on to the indignation, he only lives in a two-room flat.

According to SP Group’s chart back in June 2019, the average monthly bill for a 2-room flat is $43.50.

Even when you take inflation into account, you got to admit that a $1,000 monthly bill is quite improbable.

Sembcorp Has Responded

A spokesperson for Sembcorp said that the issue will be verified by SP Group.

While the electricity provider for the household is different, SP Group is still the one doing the meter readings.

It was added that households could see a heftier increase in electricity bills during the Circuit Breaker months since more people are working from home and it’s been quite warm, leading to more aircon and fan usage.

 

Be Prepared For Higher Electricity Bills

If you were to go through the comments’ section, you’ll notice that Chai’s case isn’t exactly unique, although his case is quite “out of this world”.

Well, for the rest of us who doesn’t have a ten-fold increase in electricity bills, there’s a plausible reason for the spike.

According to SP Group, during the circuit breaker months, they were not able to get meter-readings since it’s considered a “non-essential” service, so whatever you were charged with was an “estimation” of your usage.

Not that it’s Phase Two and they can let people come out to do meter-readings again, they’ll look at your previous months for the real usage.

Then, they’ll charge you whatever the shortfall is.

So if you, like the dude above, realised that your electricity bill for the month of July is higher than when you worked from home, that’s within expectations.

You can view SP Group’s full post below:

As for Chai…I’ve got nothing to say.

Unless he online-stream concerts in the highest quality and has twenty refrigerators in his home, it’s pretty hard to imagine someone hitting $1,000 in a single month.

Read Also: Super Expensive Hermes Mahjong Set Up For Grabs At Just $57K

I can’t believe I just used the word “just” and “$57K” together.