TNB is not doing its work?

I would like to highlight the lazy approach by TNB in reading the monthly meters of households in Petaling Jaya. We are retirees staying in Section 11 Petaling Jaya, a modest neighborhood, and we pride ourselves in paying our bills promptly. Every month, before the 10th of each month, my wife and our neighbours would wait for the TNB meter reader to appear, and would happily assist him to read the meters of our houses. This is to lighten his onerous workload, and would also ensure that we pay on on actual consumption, and not based on sometimes high 'estimates'.

This month, November, we were surprised that the TNB meter reader did not appear, though the Syabas reader had gone his rounds on the 8th. My wife decided to call TNB today, 16 November, and was efficiently passed on to the Bills department. After the initial courtesies, imagine to her surprise, we were told that we have a bill of RM180+ for November, already recorded in the computer system!

So, apparently, the billing for my house has been completed, but I have not received the bill, not even the estimated one. Since I pay my bills online, and have been doing this for more than 10 years, do I now have to phone and beg for a statement, for my online payment? My further questions to TNB are:

• Is TNB cutting cost by reducing the effort of meter readers to manually read our bills?
• Is it the responsibility of household residents to ask for bills, and what happens if we do not receive any bills at all?
• Is TNB trying to raise "estimated revenue" by asking the meter readers not to go on their rounds monthly?
• Worse, are the meter readers shirking their jobs, and are just staying home and submitting ALL estimated bills for the houses in my area, Jalan 11/10 P Jaya? 

I sincerely hope TNB would continue its effort to read our meters on a monthly basis, and not inconvenience us in such a manner. There are defaulters who must be punished, but please do not push us, the conscientious consumers to delay our payments too.

Continue with monthly billing