AN ENERGY company has been fined $20,000 after it wrongly signed up an aged care resident with dementia and billed her for thousands of dollars.
Victoria's energy regulator, the Essential Services Commission, issued 1st Energy with the penalties for allegedly switching a small business customer without consent after getting its address mixed up with nearby aged care home resident, Joan Ford, 86.
The commission said the problem began when a telemarketer cold-called Mrs Ford last year and talked her into signing up for a new electricity deal.
This mistake was compounded when the company confused the resident's address with a nearby business and transferred the nearby business instead.
Commission chair Ron Ben-David said the whole incident is unacceptable.
"Not only did 1st Energy switch a small business without speaking to anyone involved, it did so intending to transfer the account of an elderly Victorian living in an aged care home who had made it clear she was not a representative of the nearby business," he said.
Victoria's energy rules require a retailer to obtain explicit informed consent from a customer before switching them.
Dr Ben-David says the series of errors only came to light when the elderly woman's daughter contacted 1st Energy to question the size of the energy bills.
"1st Energy also failed to report the error to the commission in accordance with the conditions of its retail licence," he said.
In addition to issuing the penalty, the commission is also requiring an audit of 1st Energy's business practices and publicly report its findings.
In a statement, 1st Energy said customers are at the heart of its business, "and when concerns are raised about any aspect of our business it's extremely important to us that we take appropriate action.
"In 2018, 1st Energy rectified the matter, apologised to the individual customer impacted and took the opportunity to enhance controls across our sales partners and service teams to reduce the risk of recurrence."
