Some customers were billed hundreds of dollars over their actual charges.

AUSTIN, Texas — If your Austin Energy bill seems much higher than usual, it could be a mistake. The utility is currently investigating a printing error that’s impacting more than 12,000 customers. 

On Monday evening, Austin Energy was made aware of a printing issue, due to testing a new upgrade of its billing system. The electricity provider said 12,638 customers were sent two bills this billing cycle, one of them being incorrect.

KVUE got a call from a viewer saying she received a nearly $900 bill, when her actual charges were just $196.

Austin Energy is reaching out to customers, asking them to verify either over the phone or online which is the correct charge before they pay their bill. 

“We know that causes alarm for anyone who gets a bill like that, and so we wanted to make sure that we were proactive in reaching out immediately this morning to the impacted customers to reassure them that there are no bill impacts,” said Matt Mitchell, a spokesperson for Austin Energy.

Anyone who was enrolled in autopay was not affected; the errors are just on the printed bills from the Oct. 21 billing cycle. If a customer happens to pay the incorrect charge, Austin Energy said they will be automatically credited to their next statement or refunded.

Mitchell said with the more than 500,000 invoices Austin Energy creates every month, this error came as a shock. Leaders are investigating why the system upgrade caused the vendor to make the printing error, so it doesn’t happen again.

“This is a process that we are well versed in, and we’ve had as part of our process for a decade, and this is the first time that this has happened,” Mitchell said. “We’re investigating as to why this one instance, among the many, many billing cycles that we go through, presented itself.”

If you received two bills are aren’t sure which one is correct, call 512-494-9400 and speak with a customer service representative or use the interactive voice response system. You can also check your correct bill balance at COAUtilites.com.