boon's log 3609.03: I am TNB, I don't make mistakes...

Came back from work one day, peeked into our mailbox and found our TNB bill lying in there. IL and I had a little game going on - i.e. to guess what the amount of each month's electric bill is going to be. We named our guesses and found that we were both wrong. To our BIG surprise, this month's bill was a whopping RM524.80. I rubbed my eyes and rechecked the number ... RM524.80. Checked the name and address on the bill. Everything checked out correctly. We did get an electric utility bill for RM524.80... no tunggakan, it's Caj Semasa - Current charges, not brought forward.


TNB Surprise.

My mind immediately went into a frenzy trying to figure out which appliance in our small little apartment could have caused this and the immediate thing was to detect and destroy - yeah, like throw it out of the 25th floor window, kinda. We came up with a few suspects - the washer, dryer or the air-conditioning system...

Anyways, I did the next best most imaginable thing - I checked our meter reading against the bill and "Voila!" we found the culprit - the TNB meter reader-guy read our neighbors' meter instead of ours(!!!). Called TNB to file for a billing dispute. 1-5454.


Mine... mine... mine...


Our neighbors - a whopping 683 kWh difference

"We cannot do anything for you here. You will have to take your bill to the Kedai Tenaga listed at the bottom of your bill and file for dispute," was the reply.

Wait-a-minute, I live in the south part of the island and you want me to drive all the way down to downtown, pay for my parking and line up and file for a dispute for a mistake done by TNB? Am I missing something here?

According to EY "Dude, what do you expect? It's not 2020 yet!"

So, took the picture of both the meters and went through all the hassle of driving downtown, endure the traffic jams, parked my car and lined up to report a billing mistake done by TNB.

At the Inquiry Desk, the lady was, as expected, impolite and unfriendly. I took the initiative to wish her a good-morning, to which there was no reply. I tried to let that go, being Ramadhan and all. Anyway, I showed her the bill and the pictures and told her the whole story of how the meter guy clearly read the wrong meter and the bill was wrong.

She then snapped back and debated on how do I know that the meter guy read the wrong meter and that my picture was blur and not clear enough and in a way rejected the dispute. What the? That set me off. I asked her which part of the picture she could not read and she told me the No. Jangkaan - i.e. the Meter Number.

"You boleh baca, kah?! Ah, bacalah... bacalah!", she said.

So I read the No. Jangkaan out to her and she tallied it with my bill. And her reply was a loud, "Ah, betul-lah! You... baca dari mana?"

!!!

I took a deep breath and said (in English), "Auntie, I read it from the number printed on the meter in the picture that I just showed you just now."

Only then did she give me a photostated copy of a form to fill in, with no carbon copy, no report number, no reference number. What to do? This is TNB... Filled it up and passed it back to her.

"I kena simpan ini gambar," she said - as if it was part of the requirement for me to bring the picture in the first place. So I told her, "Sure, go ahead, I have the soft copy."

I asked her for a reference number so that I can refer to this report later in case I need to follow up, but she just gave me the blunt, "Tak apa, depa (they) akan call you nanti."

"Siapa depa? So, I tak akan bayar dulu sehingga depa call saya?", I said.

"No, no, no. You kena bayar!!"

"Apa?! Saya kena bayar RM 500 because TNB salah baca meter?!" That was the trigger that set things off. "No, I will not pay TNB anything until you fix the issue!!"

"Ok, our complaints department will call you back as soon as he can." - if there is, indeed, a complaints department, that is.

I went back to my office and immediately submitted another complaint online and then called up the TNB Penang and asked for the Manager of Commercial Affairs, Tuan Haji Yusoff bin Hamzah. The operator immediately patched me through to his office. Unfortunately, Tuan Haji was out and his Personal Assistant (PA) will get back to me shortly.

True enough, the PA called me back half an hour later and spoke to me politely in perfect English. I complained the entire ordeal to her, stating my utmost disappointment with TNB and the service that I am getting. She accepted my complaints and said that she will personally look into it and ensure that the personnel/officer in charge will call me back before lunch - and he did.

The next day, I got another call from TNB confirming that they read the wrong meter and the amendments were being made in the system and that I will be receiving the amended bill through the mail. And was told not to pay anything until i receive the new bill. And true enough, I receive the new bill in my mail box the next day... looks like it really helps when you talk to someone at the top.


Amended utility bill

So a key-learning for folks living in apartments and condominiums - it is not very hard for the meter reader to make mistakes. Do not condone to the impolite treatment when making your complaints at the TNB. Take a picture of your respective meters immediately (to capture the closest reading to the one recorded on your bill) as evidence - even though they did not ask for it initially(but they will ask for it later).

This is Malaysia, and this is Tenaga Nasional Berhad, they don't make mistakes - even if they do, YOU (the customer) will have to pay for it. Service without a smile.

boon out...