MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Have you noticed a change with your MLGW bill? Is it coming sooner or later than usual? Did you get two bills this month instead of one?
We're hearing from a lot of you wondering what's going on with MLGW's billing and asking if the changes are legit. Sounds like story for our Verify team.
The most recent question we got about MLGW came Monday. William sent us an email which read, "MLGW has changed everyones billing cycle. Is that legal and should the customers be notified? On the next door app, a customer states she received two bills in July. Please Verify. "
So this is pretty easy to Verify. Yes, MLGW is changing customer billing cycles and according to MLGW spokeswoman Gale Jones Carson, it is legal for the utility to do.
But did the utility do enough to notify customers? We can verify MLGW did sound out a news release February 28th announcing the changes to billing cycles saying it was reorganizing its meter reading routes. It was on its website, and the information was included in the newsletter that comes in customers bills.
So why is the change necessary?
"What we are doing is changes the cycles the customers due date and the cycles to make it more efficient for our employees to work," said Jones Carson.
Jones Carson says the billing adjustments began in March and will be complete by October, and that means your due date may change by a few days either way.
In William's email he also asked us to verify if some customers are getting two bills in July? Yes, we can verify that is true .
"Some customers are receiving two bills in the month of July. Primarily because we have 31 days in July, and when we have 31 days in a month, which we have several, there is a possibility customers will receive two bills in one month," said Jones Carson.
She added, "There is no over billing and there is no double billing. What customers can do is look at their meter reading date on the bill. If they have two bills, they can do a comparison and they will see they are being billed for two separate time frames."
So yes, we can verify some people will get two bills not only in July, but potentially any month with 31 days.