The blackout threat may have eased along with the state's electricity costs, but the energy crisis is still hitting home with consumers: They are flooding state regulators with complaints about their utility bills.

So far this year, the California Public Utilities Commission has handled an average of 363 billing dispute cases a month from customers of the state's three major utilities. That compares with 227 a month last year.

Objections concern everything from the accuracy of home utility meters to the way the bills are tabulated. And the level of aggravation seems to be growing, too, said Graham Brownstein, a community organizer for The Utility Reform Network, which helps resolve such differences.

``It's been overwhelming to me how dramatic the change has been,'' Brownstein said.

Yet pursuing these grievances with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. or the state commission often proves a futile exercise, according to Brownstein and others.

Just ask 45-year-old Oakland architect Mina Vijeh, who wrote the commission in May, alleging that PG&E had sent her several conflicting bills and then temporarily turned off her power when she wouldn't pay an amount she considered unwarranted.

``I shall do anything legally possible to bring this bureaucratic tyranny to an end,'' her letter said. But three months later, Vijeh's resolve melted. After getting nowhere with PG&E and the state agency, she said, she wound up paying the utility far more than she believes is justified and threw in the towel.

``I basically gave up,'' she said. ``It's a bureaucratic nightmare.''

Past problems

PG&E has been criticized in the past for its billing system. In December 1999, thousands of its customers received late bills because it had computer problems. The following year, PG&E acknowledged that another computer glitch caused hundreds of customers to mistakenly believe they had been overcharged.

But despite the surging number of billing complaints, PG&E spokesman John Nelson defended his company's procedures and said he doesn't believe it is making more errors.

Nelson cited state rules prohibiting him from commenting on individual grievances without a written waiver from the customers involved. However, he blamed the increase on a variety of factors, which he said have heightened public awareness about energy and made consumers more likely to contest their bills.

For one thing, the commission raised electricity rates twice this year, which boosted many bills even if people didn't use more power. A jump in wholesale natural gas costs also caused the average homeowner's natural gas bill to hit $125 in January, compared with $45 in March last year, though gas bills have dropped since then.

It hasn't helped that the media have engaged in what Nelson termed ``a feeding frenzy'' over the state's electricity problems. And when the Public Utilities Commission tinkered a few months ago with the so-called baseline rate that is used partly to calculate utility charges, many consumers found their bills ``very confusing,'' Nelson said.

Linda Woods, the commission's consumer affairs branch manager, also doesn't believe the increasing complaints mean the utilities are doing a worse job processing bills. ``I think most of the people are calling because they don't understand the formats of the new bills and because they are higher,'' she said.

But Woods acknowledged that it is hard to know how valid many of the gripes are because her staff is so overwhelmed with cases that it is difficult to look into them all in detail.

Just getting through to her office to talk to a consumer representative can be a problem, she added, noting that anyone calling her office is ``likely to be waiting in queue for up to a half an hour or more.''

That happened to 35-year-old Janine Burke, of Auburn, who has been seeking the commission's help over an ongoing billing dispute with PG&E. ``One time I was on hold for 42 minutes,'' she said. ``Nobody ever picks up.''

No one knows how many complaints never get reported to the state because frustrated callers simply hang up. Similarly, consumer advocates say, many other utility customers may not realize they are being overcharged because they figure it is too much trouble to go over their bills carefully.

Gave up

Among the latter is Robert Wright, a 50-year-old San Jose middle school teacher who said he got into a disagreement with PG&E nearly two years ago about a meter and gave up fighting with the utility after that.

``It was such a mess, I finally threw up my hands and said, `I can live with pain,' '' he said. Now, Wright said he rarely bothers to scrutinize his bill. ``It's faith, based on a little bit of laziness and fear,'' he said. ``I'm just afraid of discovering a little bit of more bad news.''

Mercury News

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2001