Chanelle* lost power for two days because of a storm. A lot of food spoilt in her fridge and she wanted help.
The issue
During a severe storm, there was a power outage at Chanelle’s house that lasted almost two days. Because her electricity was disconnected, a lot of food spoilt in her fridge. She made a claim for $595 to her distributor to compensate for the loss of this food. The distributor is the company that owns and manages the poles and wires in an electricity network. She said this was a low estimate of her loss. The distributor offered her $300, which Chanelle was not happy with so she contacted EWOV.
The investigation
We raised an Assisted Referral for Chanelle. This means a higher level contact at the distributor needed to try and resolve the complaint by working with Chanelle. Because she told us she wasn’t happy with what it said, we started an Investigation. This means a EWOV Conciliator investigates the issue. We get all the relevant information and work with the customer and the company to reach a fair and reasonable outcome. In this case, we looked into how Chanelle showed her loss, and why the outage happened.
The outcome
Chanelle sent us supermarket receipts and other similar documents to show the value of the spoilt food. These documents showed the spoilt food cost $650. Because of this, the distributor paid her $650 to compensate for food lost during the power outage.
Case number: 2017/775
*Names have been changed