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HEADLINE: SCANA Has Bill Payment Glitch

Address Changed: Some Web-Paying Customers' Checks Haven't Been Posted Since January.

Saturday, April 15, 2000

Payments from about 1,000 SCANA Energy customers in Georgia who pay their bills electronically have been lost since January when the natural gas marketer switched to a new billing system --- intended to improve customer service.

SCANA became aware of the errors April 6 through customer complaints and began investigating the problem, which occurred with the switch to a new billing system Jan. 1, company spokeswoman Cathy Love said Friday.

At least 66 customers had their gas service terminated before SCANA learned of the problem, Love said.

''We apologize for any inconvenience,'' she said. The billing switch was to help SCANA handle more customers, she said.

SCANA, based in Columbia, has stopped shutting off service altogether pending resolution of the electronic billing errors, which it hopes to accomplish within a month, Love said.

The trouble began when SCANA changed the address for payments to an Augusta post office box. That change was to help the company deal with a larger volume of customers, she said.

Atlanta resident Debbie Locker said she gasped when she received a notice informing her that she owed SCANA $300 for the first three months of the year.

Locker, who works at an Atlanta public relations firm, said she pays most of her utility bills through an online bill payment service offered by Wachovia.

Officials at Wachovia, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., did not immediately return calls seeking comment, but Locker said an investigator told her the bank has been investigating similar complaints.

It was unclear how many other banks or other online-payment services had trouble with SCANA.

''I said, 'Oh God, my bill's $300!' '' Locker said. ''I usually know my bill's going to be around $80 or so every month, so I just go to the Wachovia (Web) site and put in $70 or $80 or whatever.''

But after the money was deducted from her account, it apparently went to the wrong address when SCANA changed account numbers and the address for Georgia residential payments.

Typically, when paying a bill electronically, a bank or other bill-payment service charges a fee and sends a check through the mail to the entity that is owed.

Love said SCANA sent customers who pay electronically two notices about the address switch, ''but unfortunately in this day and age when people get flooded with a lot of information, this may not have been brought up to the level of their attention.''

The Public Service Commission has had only a few calls about the billing problem, another in a series of customer complaints about billing and higher costs since the state's natural gas market was deregulated last year.

About a dozen marketers now compete for Georgians' natural gas business. SCANA has about 431,000 customers in Georgia, the most among the companies.

''It hasn't been as smooth as some people had hoped,'' PSC Executive Director Deborah Flannagan said of gas deregulation.

''It's growing pains,'' she said. ''If we'd had a two-year transition, as some states had, I'm sure these systems would have grown in a much more orderly fashion.''

Commissioner Bobby Baker said most of the problems related to deregulation have involved companies not billing customers and not crediting their accounts with payments. He said he was surprised to learn of SCANA's bill trouble Friday.

''They've been doing this for a long time in South Carolina, so they are not a neophyte,'' Baker said. ''Here in Georgia you would think they would have some safeguards.''

The correct address is: SCANA Energy, P.O Box 964, Augusta, GA 30903-0964.

) 2000 Cox Interactive Media

http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/today/business_838f301993f2006c00ec.html

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), April 15, 2000