The Case Against Con Edison

Consolidated Edison, Inc. operates as a regulated monopoly serving approximately 3.4 million customers across New York City and Westchester County. As a public utility operating under the oversight of the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC), Con Edison holds a privileged position: a guaranteed customer base with no competitive alternatives. In exchange for this privilege, the law imposes heightened duties of care, transparency, and accountability.

Con Edison is violating these duties. Not occasionally, not accidentally — systematically.

I. Fraudulent Billing Practices

Under New York Public Service Law, utilities must base charges on actual metered consumption. When actual readings are unavailable, estimates must be reasonable, based on verifiable historical data, and clearly disclosed.

Con Edison violates this in multiple ways:

Fabricated usage estimates: Monthly bills jumped from $57 to $1,063 — an 18x increase in one month — based on “estimated” readings with no data validation. Usage peaked at 4,241 kWh ($1,556) — a 32x increase over the baseline — for a home with non-electric heating. When challenged, ConEd claimed estimates were based on “historical patterns” that never existed.

Retroactive relabeling of readings: Bills marked as “Estimated” in one month are retroactively changed to “Actual” in the following month's statement — manufacturing the appearance of legitimate data after the fact. See the evidence →
Multiple contradictory billing histories: ConEd's own platform displays three separate, mutually exclusive billing timelines for the same service periods. Bills appear and disappear. Balances don't reconcile. Two of the parallel records were later silently removed from the portal. See the evidence →
Unexplained adjustments: Credits of $50, $122, $1,252, and $4,013 appear across different billing “realities” with zero explanation. If ConEd doesn't know why they're issuing credits, they don't know what the correct charges are. See the evidence →

II. A Customer Service System Designed to Fail

Regulated utilities have an obligation to provide accessible, responsive customer service and meaningful dispute resolution mechanisms. Con Edison's customer service apparatus does the opposite — it is engineered to exhaust customers into abandoning legitimate complaints.

The cycle: Call → wait on hold → representative has no notes from previous calls → re-explain everything → told to email photos or schedule a visit → photos ignored, visits silently cancelled → call again. Repeat for 2+ years.

No institutional memory: Representatives cannot access notes from previous calls. Customers must re-explain their entire case history on every contact. No escalation path exists. No callback numbers are provided. See the call log →
Unanswered communications: Emails sent at the specific direction of ConEd representatives — with photo evidence and meter data — receive no response. Not one out of nine. See the email log →
Phantom appointments: Service visits requiring full-day schedule holds (8 AM - 3 PM) are silently cancelled without notice. When questioned, representatives blame the crew for being unable to “access the meter” — without ever having visited. See the appointment log →

III. Systemic Incompetence — or Strategic Obstruction?

Con Edison cannot reliably track its own equipment. A smart meter — installed before the current resident moved in, confirmed by three separate ConEd technicians, and documented with photographic evidence sent to multiple ConEd email addresses — still does not appear in ConEd's systems.

This is not a minor administrative error. ConEd uses the alleged absence of a smart meter to justify the very estimated readings that produce wildly inflated bills. The confusion is compounded by ConEd's inability to determine whether the residence has one customer account or two — a question that multiple technicians, representatives, and system records answer differently.

At what point does “incompetence” become indistinguishable from strategy? See the evidence →

IV. Shutoff Threats as a Weapon

For a monopoly providing an essential public service, the threat of disconnection is the ultimate leverage. New York regulations are supposed to protect customers from shutoff during legitimate disputes. Con Edison treats these protections as suggestions.

Shutoff notices sent during an open, formally filed billing dispute
Monthly late fees accruing on balances the customer was told they didn't need to pay
An opaque “case extension” process that nobody can explain, creating constant threat of disconnection
Representative response when confronted: “Sorry, we can't stop those notices, but trust us your power will not get shut off”

A customer with no alternative provider, receiving shutoff threats for a disputed balance that ConEd itself cannot accurately calculate, is not being served — they are being coerced. See the evidence →

V. This Is Not an Isolated Case

The sustained nature of these failures — spanning more than two years, multiple internal systems, and numerous representatives — cannot credibly be dismissed as isolated error. The New York Attorney General has previously taken action against energy companies for deceptive billing practices. Con Edison has been fined millions by the NYPSC for various regulatory violations.

The evidence documented on this site comes from a single, meticulously documented case. The question is: how many other customers are experiencing the same thing without the time, resources, or persistence to document it?

See the Documented Case Submit Your Evidence