Chubu Electric Overcharges 5 M. Customers

Nagoya, Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)--Chubu Electric Power Co. said Thursday that its retail unit had overcharged more than 5 million customers for over two years due to cost calculation errors.

The overcharges, found at Chubu Electric Power Miraiz Co., affected at least 5,009,000 customers, or about 57 pct of its total customer base. About half of the affected customers are households.

Customers were overcharged a total of some 1.2 billion yen. The company plans to refund the excess charges but has not yet determined the timing and method.

Chubu Electric has already been under fire for a series of scandals, including cherry-picking data on projected earthquake ground motion at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture and improperly billing decommissioning costs for reactors at the plant.

Monthly overcharges were 10 yen for the average household and up to 152 yen for individually owned eateries and other businesses. Local governments paying for street light bills were also overcharged.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]