August 1, 2013 Andr Marin Ombudsman Office of the Ombudsman of Ontario Bell Trinity Square 483 Bay Street,

10th Floor, South Tower Toronto, ON M5G 2C9 Dear Mr Marin, Due to the extraordinary numbers of complaints my office receives regarding Hydro One billings I request you investigate the following issues with their billing process and their customer service. 1. Billing accuracy and verification Hydro One customers have no practical way of independently verifying their hydro bills. Although consumers are billed for energy consumption in three rate groups, time of use meters only display aggregated energy consumption in the form of a numerical display. This stands in stark contrast to telephone companies. In their bills, each phone call a customer is billed for is identified and quantified on each monthly invoice. The customer has the ability to scrutinize the phone record and determine its veracity. Given the lack of detail on time of use meters, Hydro One's billings could be likened to a phone bill without call records or a monthly bank statement that does not include individual deposit, withdrawal or payment transactions and instead only provides the closing monthly balance. 2. Estimated billing practices due to the communications failure of Time of Use meters As you may be aware, time of use meters (TOU) were designed to transmit power consumption information electronically. Unfortunately, many TOU meters cannot communicate with the Hydro One network. Instead of fixing this problem and giving customers actual use bills, Hydro One produces estimated bills, which it still expects customers to pay, despite the fact that neither the customer nor Hydro One has any evidence as to actual energy consumption. For some of my constituents, this run-around has gone on for multiple years. And, when the actual bills do arrive, customers are stuck with catch-up bills they can't afford. Rick Stevens, Hydro Ones Vice President of Customer Service, informed me that this is a problem which affects approximately 5% of all 13 million TOU meters. That means there are upwards of 600,000 consumers in this province are affected, largely in rural areas such as my riding, 3. Technical blocks on customer billings due to meter failure In my discussions with Hydro One, I was informed that there are an undetermined number of TOU meters that have some other technical malfunction. Customers with a faulty meter get no bills from hydro while the meter is malfunctioning, rather Hydro initiates a "technical block" on the customer s bill, which I have seen can take over a

year to remedy. When the malfunctioning meter is replaced the customer faces a catastrophic bill in some cases. Once again the customer has no ability to scrutinise the veracity of these catch up bills and Hydro One only has a faulty meter for evidence. 4. Undue length of time to correct meter and network failures There is evidence that it often takes Hydro One upwards of one year and in some extreme cases much longer to correct a faulty or non-communicating TOU meter. These issues are a major concern for the people in my riding, and have garnered media condemnation, as you will see enclosed. Given that every Hydro One customer is affected by the lack of transparency in Hydro One's billing/metering process, it is my recommendation that your office investigate these practices of Hydro One. Best Regards,

Randy Hillier, MPP Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington ENC: Hydro One customers fume over long-standing billing mess by Hugh Adami, Ottawa Citizen, July 31, 2013 Local MPP fed up with hydro one monopoly by Randy Hillier, Perth Courier, Jul 18, 2013