Nicole Niceforo spent a decade avoiding her air conditioner to keep her electric bill down, only to learn she had been paying for someone else's power use the entire time. The Queens resident discovered that her electricity bill had been switched with the one belonging to the apartment directly above her, meaning she footed her neighbor's energy costs for 10 years.
Niceforo first tried to get to the bottom of the mystery in September 2016, when she asked Con Edison to send a technician to inspect her meter. Instead of dispatching someone to check it, the company directed her to building management, according to FOX 5 New York. She said she repeatedly called building management afterward and grew increasingly frustrated as the issue dragged on without resolution.
Niceforo said she felt she had no recourse during those years, and that fear of running up an even bigger bill kept her from using her air conditioning. The billing problem was finally uncovered, per the outlet's reporting, after Niceforo pushed for another test and building management traced the mix-up back to the wrong meter.
Con Edison Admits the Error, But Only Pays for Six Years
Once the mistake came to light, Con Edison admitted the billing error in writing and issued Niceforo more than $6,000 in refund checks. Niceforo said she felt both outraged and relieved that the billing issue was finally exposed after so long.
That refund, however, only covers the past six years of billing, leaving nearly four years of potential overcharges and interest unaccounted for. Niceforo turned to the state Department of Public Service for help recovering the rest, but the agency declined to require Con Edison to pay any additional reimbursement, citing the company's claim of a six-year limitation on billing adjustments. The Department of Public Service also noted it had no record of Niceforo filing a formal complaint with the agency back in 2016.
A New York statute addressing utility billing timelines, reviewed via the New York State Senate's published law, bars a public utility from billing a residential customer for previously unbilled service, or raising a previously issued bill, more than 24 months after the service was provided. That provision concerns upward adjustments to bills, not the six-year refund window Con Edison and the state cited in Niceforo's case. Con Edison has said it works with customers who believe their energy use isn't correctly reflected on their bills, though it maintains that billing adjustments are limited to six years.
Niceforo's Case Is Far From Isolated
Meter mix-ups like Niceforo's are not unique to her building. The state Department of Public Service, which says it assists consumers with billing issues across electric, gas, steam, phone, cable and water utilities, has fielded about 200 complaints from Con Edison customers since 2022 involving subcontractor mistakes during smart-meter installations, according to Patch. Con Edison has installed nearly five million of the devices, which track electricity use in real time and transmit it directly to the company, and it describes accidental flip-flops as a rare result of human error during building upgrades or new construction.
Other New Yorkers have run into similar trouble. Another Queens renter, also named Nicole, told Patch her usage dropped to nothing when her neighbors left town for a week in January 2023 — a red flag that led a Con Edison technician to confirm a meter mix-up at her home two months later. In Brooklyn, homeowner Jacob Mnookin said he discovered he was being billed for his tenants' electricity after installing solar equipment, and that the problem remained unresolved even after he contacted Con Edison and filed a complaint with the state.
The problem isn't confined to New York, either. In Houston, resident Peter Yang recently received more than $14,000 in refunds after learning he had been billed for another household's electricity for 14 years, according to the Korea Daily. For Niceforo, the partial refund closes one chapter of a decade-long billing error, but with years of potential overcharges still unresolved, her fight with Con Edison may not be over.
