Technical Issues Cause Billing Delays For 140,000 Southern California Edison Customers

ROSEMEAD (CBSLA.com) — Some Southern California Edison customers should be ready for a bigger bill when it arrives in the mail, but it's but it's not due to a rate hike.

"What I'm waiting for at this point, which is $223.18, is the reading for August," says Karol Parker of Murrieta, who hasn't received last month's bill from the utility company.

"We're on a really restrictive budget. This could be very difficult for them to get that bill paid," said Parker, who adds that lumping multiple bills together could pose problems.

"If you don't get that bill to me you know within a couple months, I'm looking at a $700 bill," she said.

Parker isn't alone.

SCE says 140,000 customers have had their bills delayed.

"We realized that this is something that can impact them and we are very sorry that this is something that they're experiencing," Kari Gardner, SCE's manager of consumer affairs, said.

She says the company sent an email out to some customers to alert them of the problem that started in mid-August.

"Explaining that we're experiencing a technical difficulty, that we've identified the root cause of that, and that we are working to get them a bill as quickly as possible," Gardner said.

SCE representatives say bills have been delayed by about ten days for those affected.

And, they say, the amount of customers that have been impacted is very small.

"We serve 5 million customer accounts and this is 140,000 customer accounts so it's really less than two percent of our overall population of customers," Gardner said.

Customers with any concerns about missing bills or paying a larger bill can contact SCE.