Saskatchewan senior gets $13,000 gas bill after SaskEnergy goofs

A Saskatchewan senior got a shock a while ago when she opened a letter from the gas company and learned she owed $13,000.

According to the Saskatchewan Ombudsman, whose annual report was released Thursday, SaskEnergy told the elderly woman that a mistake had been made a decade earlier.

The woman, called "Hilda" in the report, had set up preauthorized payment from her bank account, but for some reason the money was taken out of another customer's account.

The mistake, which was SaskEnergy's, continued once a month for the next 10 years.

Hilda said she never checked her bank statements for gas payments, because the letters from SaskEnergy assured her the bills had been paid.

Because she's a senior on a fixed income, she said she couldn't afford to pay the $13,000 on top of her ongoing bills.

The ombudsman's office got involved, and negotiated for a better deal with the Crown utility.

The deal they came up with was, the woman could pay the entire $13,000 in installments, or she could pay $4,000 in a lump sum.

Hilda opted for the lump sum. She borrowed the money.

She was relieved to have the whole matter behind her, the ombudsman's report said.