Mountain neighborhood gets refund after paying for nonexistent street lights for 17 years

By Jennifer Emert

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    LEICESTER, North Carolina (WLOS) — For 17 years, Robert Hoppenhauer’s Leicester neighborhood has been charged for a service it wasn’t receiving. It amounts to tens of thousands paid to the local power company, Duke Energy Progress (DEP).

“Once I realized it wasn’t just me, but everybody, then I said, we have to call somebody,” Hoppenhauer said.

News 13 and the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission Public Staff are investigating how it happened, who holds the utility company responsible, and how to check if it’s happened to you.

Nine miles outside Asheville, on a Leicester hillside, sits a quiet neighborhood.

“It’s nothing but good, hard working people. We keep to ourselves, until we don’t have to,” Hoppenhauer described his neighborhood.

When something looked amiss on Hoppenhauer’s power bill late in 2021, he had to call Duke Energy Progress.

“I’m a stickler, I’m very much a big stickler for reading my bills and understanding them,” he said. “When I called them, I played a little coy with them, oh I see this is a new charge, you know and she’s like, ‘no, no it’s always been charged.’ And I was like, well how long have I been paying it? And she’s like, ’14 and a half years.’ I said, now we have a problem.”

Duke Energy’s Streetlight map highlights the issue.

What did the maps show? “Their maps shows that there are eight street lights on this street and two of them are in backyards,” Hoppenhauer said.

It’s obvious at nightfall or during the day if you ride through the neighborhood along Slick Rock Road, while the streetlights are indicated on Duke Energy’s map, there are no actual lights in the neighborhood.

“I said to my wife, I don’t understand how not only does it show street lights, but every single one of them is working,” said Hoppenhauer.

News 13 reached out to Duke Energy Public Relations Manager Jeff Brooks.

“The lights show up on the map, but they’re not in the neighborhood, how does something like that happen?” News 13 asked.

“Well, it’s a little bit of a mystery,” Brooks explained. “Somewhere when these lights were set up 20 years ago, which was a different time, those lights were put into the system but somehow, were not installed in the neighborhood.”

Duke Energy’s billing change, which now shows the streetlight fee separately on your bill, helped Hoppenhauer catch the local utility’s error.

“This fall we changed the bill format to make it a little more transparent, a little easier for customers to understand the charges that they receive every month,” said Brooks.

It’s a change the North Carolina Utilities Commission Public Staff, which regulates utilities, supports.

“The old billing system that was in place was very old and it had great limitations,” said James McLawhorn, energy division director.

McLawhorn and the energy division have requested four pages of data from Duke Energy Progress.

“How long has the charge been applied to their bill, how long have they been paying it,” McLawhorn explained what they’re looking into.

They also asked the power company if it “did an inventory of any street lights or poles on any street in the subdivision and if not why?”

DEP’s response provided to NC Utilities Commission public staff – “while it’s unknown how they started billing the properties in question, since there are no lights installed, an inventory would not have been conducted.”

“If the investigation finds the utility was doing something wrong are there consequences?” asked News 13 reporters.

“The number one thing is correct the billing error, not just remove the charges going forward,” McLawhorn said. “If a customer has been overcharged by the utility due to a misapplied rate schedule, which is the way I would interpret this one at least on the surface, then the utility has to refund the amount that the customer was overcharged and I believe it says up to the statute of limitations.”

In North Carolina, according to the NC Utilities Commission Public Staff, the statue of limitations is three years. Duke Energy Progress is going further than that.

“We absolutely want to make it right,” Brooks said. “This was our mistake.”

Duke Energy is working to reimburse the neighborhood the full amount. Hoppenhauer’s reimbursement is $78.48 a year; over 14 and a half years it adds up to over $1,100. Duke included 10% interest and paid Hoppenhauer and his wife over $1,300. For the 35 neighborhood customers, its around $16,000 all tolled.

The utility company believes this is an isolated situation for them. National headlines from California to Connecticut reveal it happens with other utility providers as well, from individuals to entire cities billed for non-existent lights.

News 13 asked Duke Energy’s representative — How would you know if this has happened to others? You didn’t even know this situation happened until these neighbors brought it to Duke Energy.

“We work to inventory assets over time and make sure that what’s on our map is what’s in the field and there’s a comprehensive process going on to do that right now across the system to verify those things,” said Brooks. But again in this instant they hadn’t inventoried lights that existed on their own maps and at least somewhere in their system to charge residents.

McLawhorn said he encourages everyone to check their bill each month. Hoppenhauer agrees and urges residents to look up their street on the map and compare it to their bill.

“Always check your phone bill, your cable bill; the hidden charges on there would probably amaze you,” Hoppenhauer said.

Details are now clearly broken down on Duke Energy bills, including the basic customer fee, hourly usage, streetlights and taxes.

“I’m just glad that everyone can be made right,” Hoppenhauer said. “My wife’s all calling me ‘Mr. Man,’ doing chest bumps with each other, like ‘you da man, who’s da man, I’m the man.’ But I’m just glad people are getting money that they rightfully deserve, plus 10% interest, which is fair enough.”

More information about rate options The North Carolina Public Utilities Commission points out customers also have rate options. You can reach out to Duke Energy’s customer service to see if you’re getting the best rate.

Duke Energy provides more information on rate options for its customers. You can call Duke Energy customer service at 800.452.2777.

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