FORT MYERS
What happens if your power is on, but the electricity company says your balance has been $0 for almost three months? One Lee county woman doesn’t want to find out and is battling to get and pay her Florida Power & Light bill.
The power is on, and people are home, but Cynthia Taylor hasn’t seen an FPL bill in months.
“This is the last one I received, so I haven’t gotten November, December or one for January,” Taylor said. “I always pay the whole amount, and my electricity has never been shut off or nothing like that.”
Taylor says it all started with Hurricane Ian. She didn’t have power for almost two weeks afterward, but when her electricity came back on, FPL didn’t bill her.
“I was raised to pay my bills,” Taylor said. “So, every month I pay my bills out, the whole amount. Whatever it’d be, I pay it.”
Taylor called FPL multiple times and each time she was told she didn’t have a balance. One representative even told her the meter was changed.
“It’s not working; you don’t see no numbers on here,” Taylor said of her meter. “No numbers.”
All Taylor wants to do is pay for the utility she’s using.
“I just want to stay on track,” Taylor said. “At the end, you may think you’re getting away with something… then it might harm you worse because you’re thinking you’re getting away. And I’m not gonna do that.”
WINK News emailed FPL asking if it would fix Taylor’s meter and get her a bill. FPL says it got in touch with her but could not say much else.
“I got a call that same afternoon,” Taylor said. “And I had been calling them like, what, three or four or five times and no response back. When you stepped in, it was like, right, yeah. So, I appreciate you.”
The meter was finally fixed.
“I was excited after they came out because I got some peace and rest,” Taylor said. “And I was able to sleep throughout the night again, because I was just tossing and turning.”
Taylor’s past electricity bills rarely went above $150, so she doesn’t expect to pay more than $450 for the months that are missing. She still has not been billed, however, and is not due for the upcoming month.
WINK NEWS