MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A South Florida man said Florida Power & Light mistakenly billed him for nearly $7,000.
Doron Markowitz has a guitar business that he has run out of his north Miami-Dade County home since 2012. He said he and his wife work from home and try to keep their power bills under $200, so he was shocked when he recently received the expensive bill.
"I just paid a $122 bill," Markowitz said.
Markowitz said the bill was originally close to $12,000, but then FPL issued him some credits. He said the company claims that he owes them money because they were under billing him.
"After being on the phone with her for almost an hour, we're both trying to find out what's going on here, and they said that they were underbilling me for the last, approximately, 13 months. I said, 'How is that possible?'" Markowitz said.
Markowitz showed Local 10 News the meter that the company installed in March. His home is about 1,200 square feet.
He also showed Mohan months of previous bills he has paid and said he can't imagine how the company can say that he and his wife owe them more money.
His wife said she spoke to an FPL representative, whose solution was simply to enter a payment plan with the company.
"So we're supposed to take it at face value that we owe you almost $7,000 in undercharged billing?" Markowitz said. "And then she tried to tell me, 'I'm going to explain to you how we can work out a payment plan spread out over the next 15 months so that your power doesn't get cut off.' I said, 'This is extortion.'"
A representative from FPL said the couple's meter appears to have been tapered with, but the couple said they were not stealing power.
FPL sent a letter to Markowitz saying that they hope to come to a fair resolution.