ARKANSAS, USA — Ozarks Electric Cooperative says a software issue resulted in multiple members receiving incorrect thousand-dollar past-due and disconnect notices Wednesday night.
“All different kinds of things were going on in my head,” said Ozarks Electric customer Andrea Tidwell. “I was thinking, what if I wasn't making my payments fully and it was an accumulation of leftover amounts?”
Tidwell says she received a past-due notice Wednesday night of over $4,000 from Ozarks Electric Cooperative.
“It said that I was in disconnect, and it was $4,100 something,” Tidwell said.
Tidwell is one of multiple Ozarks Electric Cooperative customers who received a similar message.
“I thought I was the only one, and I'm like, I don't know what to do,” Tidwell said.
Ozarks Electric says the issue stemmed from their billing software.
“Last night, our billing software provider sent an erroneous email, indicating that a very small group of our members had a delinquent notice on their account,” said Vice President of Marketing and Communication Ashley Harris. “That was just an email that was sent in error, it did not affect anyone's billing, and none of the accounts were affected.”
The company alerted customers of the mistake through an email and Facebook post-Thursday morning.
“People were tagging me on Facebook, and I know a lot of people were laughing about it,” Tidwell said. “But I personally don't think it is funny, because it really did scare me, and I worried about how I was going to pay that.”
Tidwell says she’s relieved to know this was simply a mistake.
“I'm an artist; the only money I get is from what I make and sell,” Tidwell said. “I'm not really prepared for a $4,000 electric bill … it did cause me a lot of stress.”
Meanwhile, Harris says Ozark Electrics is working with their software provider to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
“We are very sorry for any inconvenience or confusion this has caused. This is not a situation that we take lightly,” Harris said.
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