‘Such a slap in the face:’ NS Power customer says utility reversed her case getting sent to collections

A Nova Scotia Power customer says her account was sent to a collections agency.

Just months before moving from Halifax to Montreal, Mairi Carver says she noticed something off about her last two Nova Scotia Power bills.

“I felt like it was way too high. To be honest, I didn’t realize it was an estimation,” says Carver. “My bill was $230 and I usually pay $150.”

She says Nova Scotia Power customer service assured her she could pay only what she thought was accurate, given the utility’s recent cyberattack.

Carver says she paid $150 on the first bill and $50 on the second.

In July, she says she called the utility to close her account before her move.

“I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m still going to be able to log in to my Nova Scotia Power account, right? To be able to pay my last bill, or pay when that meter is actually read?’ (The representative) was like, ‘Yep, that’s no problem, you’ll be able to log in. Right now there’s no penalty for not paying,’” she says.

Carver believed everything was fine until Thursday when she received an email.

“I was like, ‘OK, what is this? It kind of looks like spam,’” she says.

“I received an email from a collections company in Toronto. Nova Scotia Power sent my bill to a collections agency in Toronto. The bill was for $67. Obviously, I’m raging inside because they said that there would be no consequences.”

Carver says a Nova Scotia Power agent confirmed her meter read was accurate and said she was being sent to collections for lack of payment.

“The worst part is that I would be okay if they just charged interest or charged me a late cancellation fee, which they said they were not doing, but to send a bill to a collections company, (when it was) less than three months since my last bill was due…is such a slap in the face,” she says.

“That’s going to show up on all of my credit reports if I ever want to buy a house, if I ever want to apply for a loan, apply for a car loan, for example.”

Carver later followed up with CTV News Atlantic, saying she received a call from a representative at Nova Scotia Power, informing her they were “wiping the balance” off her account, and “retracting the collections.”

“(The representative) admitted that this was a mistake on their part with this ‘batch being sent to collections’ but could not confirm that other batches would not be sent,” says Carver in an email Friday.

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