A few years ago, I went out of town to visit family during the holidays. I was gone several weeks. When I returned home, I had an electric bill three times higher than usual. I knew something was wrong! I called the electric company and they agreed to send someone out to re-check my meter. They did and found out that the prior person had read it wrong. My bill went from around $250 down to $50. If I hadn't said anything, they (the electric company) would have happily taken my money. This is why you should always challenge an electric bill that seems too high.
Nothing wrong with challenging a bill that is too high, but at the same time you might also be paying electricity based on estimations instead of actual readings and this might mess up the accounts. This happens to me often because I always give my readings when the company people don't check themselves and in winter it's always confusing because I consume a lot more. It's not easy sometimes!
This is why I like to submit my meter readings online as and when I want. This prevents any shocks as I know exactly how much I'm paying per Kw/h. I've had shocks before but that was my fault for inputing incorrect meter data, although all this meant was that next month I paid less than usual.
Here at my country it's very hard to understand how much electricity we are consuming so I am always giving my readings so that I don't have that sort of troubles. Luckily I never had my counter misread, that is really unfortunate and I am glad you challenged it. Even so, the next read would make things right anyway no?
