Viewers react to huge FPL back bill to business

By Colleen Hogan

CREATED Sep. 20, 2012 - UPDATED: Sep. 20, 2012

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  • The owners of Morgan Cafe in Port Charlotte said Florida Power and Light recently replaced their old meter with a new Smart meter. The new meter discovered they had been under-billed for years. Video by fox4now.com

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The owners of a mom-and-pop cafe just got a $4,000 back electric bill from their power company. 

The owners of Morgan Cafe in Port Charlotte said Florida Power and Light recently replaced their old meter with a new Smart meter. The new meter discovered they had been under-billed for years. 
 
So FPL sent out a bill for the power they used and never paid for. The owners can also expect their power bill to double every month. They say they should not be responsible for the bill since they didn't make the mistake.
 
Everyone who called into the Viewer's Voice line agreed.
 
Linda from Buckingham calling in: "Seeing as they're the only game in town, they pretty much can do whatever it is they wanna do."
 
Kurt from Cape Coral sounding off: "Read the meters like they used to do when they didn't have these problems with this stuff. They're trying to go high-tech, it's costing a lot of money to upgrade and it's not working."
 
Chris from Naples calling in: "I'm an 80-year-old man, and as far as I know in the business world, you pay for your own mistakes."
 
As for FPL, a rep says they do test the meters regularly for problems and insist a defective meter is rare.
 
Colleen Hogan, reporter