One out of six customers behind on Peco bills

One out of six Peco customers is behind in paying energy bills, up sharply from last year, the company said yesterday; shutoffs could begin for some of those customers by Monday.

As of March 17, 227,000 customers, or roughly 17 percent of Peco's total residential consumer base, were behind on their payments, according to the utility, which is a unit of Exelon Corp., of Chicago. That's up from 194,000, or an increase of 17 percent from a year ago.

Peco cited a list of reasons for the increase, some of which were related to the company's own administrative difficulties. Among those were a larger pool of applicants for financial assistance and a new billing system that did not generate warning letters in a timely fashion.

"Which means there are fewer customers that received these letters, which are going out now," company spokesman Cameron Kline said yesterday. "There was a bit of a backlog in terms of larger numbers of delinquent payers."

Peco provides electricity to Philadelphia and surrounding counties, and natural gas only to the suburbs. It has 1.6 million electric customers and 474,000 natural gas customers.

Kline said the 10-day notices - some of which had already been delivered - were "a very strong message to customers to call us."

"This is a way to get their attention so we can continue to work with them, get them signed up for various programs, like LIHEAP and CAP," he said.

LIHEAP - the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program - provides onetime cash payments that assist households that have heater problems or are facing the loss of utility service. The program is funded by the federal government and administered by the state. The CAP program, or Customer Assistance Program, provides for discounted electric and gas rates for eligible families.

Not all utilities are experiencing higher delinquency rates this season.

Karen Johnson, spokeswoman for Newark, N.J.-based Public Service Electric & Gas Co., said it was showing fewer delinquent payers this year compared with last. PSE&G serves 2.1 million electric consumers and 1.7 million gas customers.

"The number of people that are significantly behind on their bills is actually lower this year than last winter," she said.

She attributed the decrease to a new automated system that calls customers to remind them that they are falling behind on their bills. The calling system was installed for the first time this winter. She said PSE&G's aggressive payment-assistance outreach effort also was having an impact.

Trish Cole, a spokeswoman for PGW, said that the company was currently sending out shutoff notices and that data on the number of delinquent payers were not available. PGW serves more than 500,000 households in the city of Philadelphia.

"We encourage anyone who is behind on their gas payments to please call PGW," Cole said.

Kline at Peco said there was a confluence of factors that led to the higher number of delinquencies this year.

Besides the billing systems and difficulties in processing LIHEAP applications, which surged late in the season, Kline said there was less money available for the grants.

Peco urged customers with past-due balances to contact the company to pay their bill, make payment arrangements or take advantage of assistance programs to maintain their service.

Customers in danger of having their service terminated should contact the company immediately at 1-888-480-1533.

Customers also can make payments or pay in person at Peco's customer-service center at 23d and Market Streets in Center City, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Payments also can be made via credit card or check through the company's Web site at http://www.peco.com/ehome.