Katherine and Blaine Cappel nearly had a panic attack after an extra $1400 showed up on their bill. It got fixed after KENS 5 called CPS Energy.
SAN ANTONIO — Katherine Cappel does her best to keep the electricity bill down. She and her husband Blaine keep lights off if they don’t need them and take other precautions. The elderly couple said their bill is normally under $200.
So when CPS Energy tacked another $1400 on their December they nearly had a panic attack.
“I was in shock!” Cappel said. “We’ve been here 28 years! We’ve never had a bill for 1400 dollars.”
Mrs. Cappel told KENS 5 she and her husband called CPS Energy and were told the balance was transferred from another property which they had never heard of.
“It was up to us to prove that was not us!” Blaine Cappel said.
The couple called SAPD and made a police report since they believed someone may have set up an account by stealing their information. That was all the way back on Jan. 13.
Still, a month later, the balance remained on their next bill and they didn’t know if anything had been investigated. CPS told them to pay their normal balance at that point.
Then in February they got a “delinquency notice” claiming they still owed the whole $1449.
“They wanted the money,” Katherine Cappel said. “We were disgusted. We couldn’t believe it that they were putting us through this when it wasn’t our bill. We’ve been here 28 years. We’ve never moved to another address.”
The couple called KENS 5.
KENS 5 looked at their documentation and investigated the other address which the couple believed to be the issue. KENS 5 then contacted CPS Energy’s media representatives and sent documentation showing the couple had not lived at the other address and CPS was still trying to collect the money.
When the couple called CPS Energy again less than 24 hours later, CPS Energy had removed the $1449 balance from their account.
“I couldn’t believe it when they finally said there was a zero balance. They had finally realized that this was fraud,” Katherine Cappel said.
“If it wasn’t that we called KENS TV we would still have been in this situation thinking that we would have to get a lawyer,” she said.
CPS Energy later sent KENS 5 an email which simply said, “CPS Energy has talked to the customer and resolved the issue.”
KENS 5 also asked the utility what other customers should do if they find themselves in a similar situation.
A CPS Energy representative told KENS 5 via email, “Customers should contact our Customer Service at 210-353-2222 to report the issue, and they should also notify the police if they suspect identity theft.”
If you have a problem like this, we want to help you fix it! In our series, Call KENS, we do our best to solve problems for our viewers. The number to call is 210-470-KENS, or fill out the form on this page.