Submitted by inkysquares t3_1103kyp in personalfinance
I bought a house 2 years ago and moved out of my old apartment complex. Got the power and everything set up at the new house and all was great, set it up to auto-pay, and never looked back.
Well, I just got an automated text saying that my power bill would draw from my account soon.... and then it listed the address of my old apartment. I logged onto their website and it didn't show the old address anywhere on my account. I thought it was some weird system glitch.
Just to be sure, I went to my bank account and searched for withdrawals from my power company.... sure enough, every month for the last 2 years I have had 2 separate charges from my power company. One from the old address, and one from the new address. I added it all up and I've now paid $1500 towards someone else's power bill.
I went back to the website, and found an "add account" button, which let me add any accounts using my name and social security number, and it immediately pulled up that account which apparently I had never closed. I immediately disconnected the service to that address and plan to call Monday in some act of desperation, but ultimately I guess I fucked up and never closed the account.
Definitely a tough lesson learned on this one.
TLDR: Never closed my old power account, never checked up on my withdrawals, ended up paying someone else's power bill for 2 years.