A woman is being asked to pay a debt of 17,103 hryvnias due to an error made by a DTEK employee, as ruled by the court.

A woman was informed about the work being done to correct the improper connection of her electricity meter. She is being asked to pay a debt of 17,103 hryvnias, but she refuses, claiming that an employee of DTEK made a mistake. This is stated in the decision of the Sarat District Court of the Odessa region, published on January 3, 2025.

According to the data received, as of December 4, 2023, for the period from June 2022 to December 2023, the woman actually consumed electricity totaling 8,183 kWh, amounting to 28,902 hryvnias. She paid off a debt of 12,221 hryvnias during this period, which included 422 hryvnias from previous periods. However, she has not paid the outstanding amount of 17,103 hryvnias. Representatives of the RES of DTEK Odessa Electric Networks informed her about the work being conducted to fix the incorrect connection of the meter and provided her with act No. 1439427 of the technical inspection. She did not provide any evidence of her appeal to DTEK Odessa Electric Networks regarding her disagreement with the volume of consumption.

In her response to the lawsuit, the woman explained that in 2018, her deceased husband installed a three-phase multi-tariff meter with two-zone readings for heating their home with an electric boiler. On June 6, 2022, she received a phone call from someone claiming to be a RES employee who stated that the connection on the electric meter for "Day" and "Night" was incorrectly made and that he corrected it without her presence, leaving the sealing act at the gate. In July 2022, she had an overpayment (-345 hryvnias) and in August (-170 hryvnias). The bill for September indicated that she owed 16,461 hryvnias. She believes she should not have to pay for the mistake made by the DTEK employee. The citizen noted that the lack of evidence for her appeal to DTEK Odessa Electric Networks regarding her disagreement with the volume of electricity consumption does not validate the accuracy of the information about her electricity consumption and cannot excuse the violations by the employees responsible for entering the meter readings into her account.

What did the court decide?

The court granted the lawsuit. The woman is to repay the debt for consumed electricity in the amount of 17,103 hryvnias to the limited liability company "Odessa Regional Energy Supply Company."

"The defendant did not fulfill her obligations under the contract properly, resulting in an unrefuted debt, and she is liable to repay the debt for consumed electricity in the amount of 17,103 hryvnias," the court emphasized.