@Tommy_Straub
March 14, 2019 By Jon Cronin
An Astoria man was astounded when he tried to pay his $74 Con Ed bill and was prompted by the company’s website to pay a whopping $38 million.
Tommy Straub, a lawyer living in a small Astoria apartment, tried to pay his $74 bill online when he discovered it had jumped to almost $38 million. He took to Twitter March 11 to ask Con Ed for help and to explain the hefty discrepancy.
“Hey @ConEdison : I own a 600 square foot apartment in Astoria, Qns. I do NOT own the entirety of Manhattan Island. THIS IS INSANE. FIX IT,” he tweeted with a screenshot of the Con Ed payment page.
He said that when he tried to pay his small bill, the payment box would auto-populate–requiring a $37,974,398 payment.
“Apparently, Con Ed’s system auto-populates the field with what it “thinks” your minimum payment is!” Straub tweeted. “Even though I owed $74, something got messed with my account number and it aggregated.”
Allan Drury, a spokesman for Con Ed, noted, “We checked our systems yesterday [Tuesday] to see if anything on our end caused it to auto-populate. We know it wasn’t on our side.”
It seems that the issue was resolved in less than a day. On March 12, Straub tweeted, “Update: Mike from @ConEdison’s social media division was very helpful, and confirmed that the error could have been a bad page rendering. Con Ed’s system isn’t supposed to auto-populate, and they assured me everything is working from what they can see! Great customer service ?”
Straub was obviously never billed that amount, Drury said.
Drury noted, “He seemed satisfied,” after Con Ed reached out to Straub by phone.
Hey @ConEdison : I own a 600 square foot apartment in Astoria, Qns. I do NOT own the entirety of Manhattan Island. THIS IS INSANE. FIX IT. pic.twitter.com/UA4ri26kc9
— Tommy Straub (@Tommy_Straub) March 12, 2019
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15 Comments
My very second credit card bill way back in 1996 there was a very precise amount charged : 500.00. a charge that I never ever made. I called to see what was up and they were just about to call me and send me a new bill.. without the erroneous charge. Sometimes electronics have brain farts. Just call them, speak to someone real, and be a human about it. No reason to call 7 on your side.
The more shocking part of this story is that his Con Ed bill was only $74.
I don’t think autopopulate on any ones phone could be the cause. It was a blooper on con-ed.
The screen shot isn’t from a phone.
Didn’t say anything about a phone taking the screen shot. Just the Con Ed having a brain fart. As usual.
This is why I prefer calling in and possibly talking to an actual person if needed.
What’s the big deal? Just pay the amount due and you’ll get a credit for next month, and next month…
I love how they always say a computer error. Well… who’s putting the information in the computer? I always wanted to know how much electricity does the Time Square area use because you can go there at 10:00 at night and it looks like 10:00 in the morning! Are they getting a break on the rate while individuals have to pay more?
Just wanted his two minutes of fame…?
So Tommy sees an obvious and easily fixed error and freaks out on Twitter. Great story…
Con Ed is trying to get him to pay for the transformer blow up with the blue light lol
Take it easy with the anger my man. It was obviously a mistake.
Probably some low-tech user who has his browser auto-form fill turned on. Why is this even a story?
This news is just for laughs. Con Edison made occasional mistakes like these. Not very surprising
I wonder how many other customers are getting inaccurate bills from Con Man Ed
slow news day? (looks like he just entered a crazy amount)