DALLAS - Anger at one of Texas' largest utilities is growing.
Dozens of people are furious at sky-high power bills and are convinced the new smart meters are to blame.
"I don't mind paying my bill, but I'm not paying for something I'm not using," said one customer in Grand Prairie on Saturday.
Oncor representatives sat through a tongue lashing at a town hall meeting, where angry customers, pleaded for help with their high bills.
"It's either food, medicine or my electric - there's no way," said Trina Hall.
Nearly all say their bills went up after Oncor replaced the old mechanical meters on their homes with new digital smart meters.
Susan Major has always been careful to save electricity but almost immediately after her new meter went up, so did her bills.
"There's something wrong, either my meter was installed wrong, read wrong, something, and nobody will own up," she said.
Oncor still blames the cold winter for most of the high bills.
But the company now admits its workers misread at least 7,000 new meters when they were installed and overcharged customers.
"What you have is essentially a typo, we're catching those, both with the customers and through our own internal process," said Chris Schein from Oncor.
The utility insists the meters work.
Still, anger is growing, as is suspicion.
Grand Prairie Rep. Kirk England (D) is joining other lawmakers, calling for Oncor to stop installing millions of the new meters across North Texas until an outside agency can test their accuracy.
"I think there's a problem and I think it's more than just weather," he said.
E-mail jbetz@wfaa.com
