Gas company increasing bills for customers on fixed payments plan

PAYSON, Utah — If you’re told you’re going to pay the same price for 12 months, you wouldn’t expect the price to go up.

When the natural gas company raised the rates on a Payson woman, she decided to Get Gephardt to investigate.

For years now, Dominion Energy has boasted they can make it easy on customers by spreading their payments across the year equally, rather than paying really high amounts in the winter and really low amounts in the summer. This year it is not working out that way.

Dee Wilson lives on a fixed income and she said budgeting is important. She signed up for Dominion Energy’s equal budget program which spells out the benefits when Wilson logs in to her account, “The plan divides your annual amount into 12 equal payments,” Dominion Energy says.

Recently, they have not been 12 equal payments. In the past 12 months, the rate has gone up a couple of times, according to Dee’s bills.

“It had almost doubled in price,” she said.

Wilson reached out to Dominion for an explanation and was told that they are paying more for gas, so in turn, she is too.

“I’m angry because it’s not like I can go to another company to get gas. There’s one provider for our area,” Wilson said.

WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH NATURAL GAS PRICES

Wilson isn’t alone. The gas price squeeze has been stronger in western states than in the rest of the county.

The KSL Investigators recently revealed the due to frigid temperatures, increased snowfall, and increased demands from other states, natural gas prices exceeded $50 per million British thermal units in December, averaging $48.12 above the industry benchmark.