Saturday, September 20, 2008 Veco to give out P61M refund, discounts to clients in October
OCTOBER will be a busy month for the Visayan Electric Company (Veco) as it lines up a series of activities for consumers ranging from refunding of meter deposits to giving discounts for light bulbs buyers, as well as developing a bill statement in Braille.
In compliance with an order from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Veco will give out a total of P61 million in meter refunds, including interest, starting Oct. 16. The ERC last June ordered distribution utilities to refund meter deposits made by end-users.
Sebastian Lacson, Veco vice president for administration and customer services group, said P61 million covers meter deposits made by some 22,000 customers before 2004.
Veco stopped requiring service applicants meter deposits after 2004.
Separate account
Lacson said while P61 million is a substantial amount, Veco will not be hurt financially by the refund because meter deposits have always been kept in a separate account.
“Distribution utilities were authorized to collect before but we kept (the deposits) in a separate account,” said Veco public affairs officer Ethel Taneo-Natera.
“It wasn’t our money, in the first place,” said Lacson.
A registered Veco customer has until Oct. 15 to apply for the refund at Veco’s payment and customer service center at SM City. Customers have to advise the power distribution utility whether the refund will be in cash, check or will be credited to his monthly billing.
Meter refunds range from P10 to more than P200,000. So far, only about 15 companies that shelled out significant amounts as payment for meter deposits have applied for refund.
Lacson said that while distribution utilities are given five years to implement the ERC order, Veco wants to give the money in a month.
“The quicker this liability is taken off our books, the better. The happier our consumers will be when they get their money back as soon as possible,” he told members the press yesterday.
Subsidy
This month, Veco also provided P500-subsidy to consumers with electricity consumption of 100 kilowatt-hours and less. An estimated 118,000 consumers are expected to benefit from the subsidy that was mandated by President Arroyo, under the administration’s assistance program for the poor amid rising food and fuel prices.
Meanwhile, Veco partnered with nongovernment organization Resources for the Blind to come up with a billing statement in Braille to help visually impaired customers.
Lacson also revealed that Veco is trying to further improve the capabilities of its customer service call center, particularly during national disasters.
He said the call center, which is comprised of 10 staff members, handled about 35,000 calls during typhoon Frank, which caused several outages in Veco’s franchise area in Metro Cebu.
He said the company is considering having a voice mail that will provide advisory to every caller about the present power distribution situation during the disaster before directing callers to the appropriate departments, according to the nature of their concerns.
He said during certain disasters or calamities, this system can address about half of the calls.
Veco is also contemplating of utilizing short messaging system (SMS) to inform affected consumers of planned outages.
However, the company has to look into ways to address the cost of such service, among others.
Veco, owned and managed by the Aboitiz and Garcia families, is the largest private electric utility in southern Philippines.
As of July 2008, it has been serving 292,954 customers in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Talisay and Naga, as well as the municipalities of Liloan, Consolacion, Minglanilla and San Fernando. (NRC)
