About a week ago, 2 men with yellow hardhats and orange jumpsuits on 1 motorbike pulled up to my gate and tried to get 4.5 million VND out of me for ONE month of electricity.
I refused to pay it as I knew it had to be false because my previous electric bills had been from 175,000-253,000 VND per month.
I noticed the bill was not the same bill I received the previous months (they kept the bill and left when I didn't pay, so I don't have a copy of it). Also, the shoulder bag carried by one of the "electric company workers" was rather small and clearly did not have many bills in it. My previous encounters with bill collectors involved a GIANT stack of bills tied down to their bike. This guy had a small shoulder bag that appeared exceptionally light. The whole thing reaks of a scam.
I called my Realtor's assistant and told her about it, she said she'd call the owner to find out.
I didn't hear anything for a week about it so I assumed it wasn't real at this point and laughed at the idea of someone thinking they could pull 4 mil on a scam like that.
Well I got a text from my realtor's assistant recently saying the owner has paid the 4.5 million for last month, but this month is already up to 2 million. I know this can't be right.
First of all, why on earth would the owner shell out 4.5 mil for MY electric bill? He's owned this house for a while, surely he knows that 4.5 mil for 1 month of electricity in a small house with 1 AC unit is absolutely insane, and we had no problems with our first 3 months. It doesn't add up. He wouldn't pay that, it just doesn't make sense.
Taking all this into account, everything points to the realtor's assistant as the one pulling my strings here, but it's just too dumb of a con and she seems like a really smart girl. That doesn't really add up to me either. Why would she try that? The chances of coming out clean and not getting fired seems real small.
In addition, my realtor and his wife are in France on vacation. It seems so obvious that the realtor's assistant is behind it, but I'm really having a hard time believing it.
I've been here for 3 months now. We use A/C (typically set to 24 degrees) and the television for a few hours at night. Our typical bill of 150-250k seemed fair for that, but to think they would charge over $200 US for ONE month of electricity is absolutely absurd.
Has anyone else received an outrageous electric bill?
Can anyone shed any light on this? I have a copy of my previous 2 months electric bill statements at 175k and 253k.