CAPE CORAL, Fla. -- We all hate paying bills, but how about paying a 15-year-old bill you didn’t know you had? That’s what Joan Bruno, who lives in Cape Coral says happened to her when she tried to pay her light bill, and now she wants to know how this happened.
Bruno, who has Lee County Electric Cooperative as her electric provider, says she actually moved away from the area for two years in 2004 and came back in 2006. She says since then she had LCEC and wasn't aware of the $200 bill.
"I don’t understand how I can be billed for something 15 years ago," Bruno said. No one has ever even reached out to me to let me know I had this bill."
So she called Lee County electric cooperative, she says she was told she put her old account number into the LCEC system, and the 15-year-old bill popped up.
"I literally can’t remember my phone number let alone an account number from 15 years ago," she said.
Bruno says she paid the bill, but she says the the problem is, another bill is due a few days later. She told Fox 4, she lives pay check to pay check and getting money to pay her next bill would be tough.
Fox 4 reached out to LCEC to see how this could have happened, Karen Ryan, the public relations manager says they're not sure how that bill fell through the cracks.
"Somehow we did not collect, we did not see that she had an old account," Ryan said.
Ryan says one possible explanation for this could be once LCEC switched over to their new billing system, it was overlooked.
"Typically what would happen if she opened one up for a different address we would have seen that there was a bad debt and we would have collected at that time," Ryan said.
Fox 4 did some digging to see what options LCEC could do to help Joan, LCEC told us they could offer her an extension - or LCEC says they partner with United Way to help qualified families pay for services.
We did check back in with Joan, she tells us she just wants to make people aware of her situation and hopes it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
