Grace Leong has thoroughly informed Daily Herald readers (in articles published on March 28th, April 1st and 4th) about Questar Gas Company's botched remote meter-reading project. Five hundred customers received additional billings ranging from $30 to $7,000, averaging $1,000, and totaling $500,000, after the installation of new technology.

Under-billed customers didn't know anything was wrong. If they were timely billed for the gas they used, they could conserve. There's no chance to do that when you get a bill after the event for an extra $1,600, as one vigorous elderly widow living on a fixed income did.

By February 2008, Questar had sent back-bills to the 500 and they were complaining. After the company failed to satisfy them, more than 40 called the Division of Public Utilities. So far, eight have been unhappy enough to ask the Public Service Commission to look into it.

Questar's back-billing efforts aren't as straightforward as you might think. A thorough investigation is required; the Commission has launched one; the Utah Ratepayers Association wants to be involved and has asked the Commission to allow us to be. We want to help individual customers -- whether they have under- or over-paid -- navigate the Commission's arcane procedures. And we want to be sure that every ratepayer gets a fair deal in the end.

If you received a back-bill, or if you are concerned that, over the past ten years, you may have been over-charged, due to a faulty Questar transponder, we invite you to email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or call (801) 998-8511. For more information, go to www.utahratepayers.org.

Questar limited its back-bills to 24 months for legal reasons; some customers were asked to pay for just a few months. But there's no reason to suppose under-metering only started two years ago. It's likely that, ever since the project began, a few transponders were wrongly installed. And it's possible that some have been over-reporting consumption and those customers have been over-billed.

But it's very probable that every one of Questar's customers has seen some effect on their bills. Questar must buy all the gas it supplies to us, and it puts the cost on one side of a balancing account. It puts the gas cost share of our monthly payments (about 73 percent) on the other side. If expenditures rise faster than revenues, rates go up, and vice versa.

When some meters under-report gas used, bills and revenues are lower than they should be, so everybody's rates go up a little bit. If meters over-report, rates go down a bit. It isn't clear yet what the net effect has been of inadequate quality control of the ten-year transponder project.

If management fails to anticipate potential problems, and finds out after the fact that it has undercharged customers for extended periods, it either swallows the loss or raises prices. If it chooses the latter course, and more prudent or efficient competitors keep their prices down, it will lose business. Either way, it pays for its mistakes. Competition is brutal.

Why should a monopoly utility, whose customers cannot go to another supplier, be protected from the consequences of its errors?

The Public Service will begin its investigation at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 17, with a Procedural Conference to discuss the scope and time of the investigation, and the manner and timing of adjudicating individual complaints.

If you'd like to participate, you can. Come to Room 403, 4th Floor, Heber Wells State Office Building, 160E 300S, Salt Lake City, or call (801) 530-6716, or toll-free 1-866-772-8824, at least two days before to obtain a call-in number, and participate by telephone.

• Roger Ball, former director of the Committee of Consumer Services, is moderator of the Utah Ratepayers Association.