As all of us know, to our chagrin, ARMS Ltd sends us six two-monthly bills in the year. Two of these are 'actual' electricity bills, where the bottom line is a precise reading, while the other four are mere estimates.

On each of these bills it sends out, ARMS Ltd decides whether the customer is entitled to an eco-reduction.

Let us suppose a household has a quota of 100 units every two months. If in any of the two months covered by one of the six bills consumption exceeds this quota of 100 units, then the household is not entitled to this eco-reduction.

If the billed household consumes less than its quota, or the exact quota itself, it then is entitled to the eco-reduction. What does this eco-reduction entail? It entitles the household to a 25 per cent reduction on the billed amount.

And this is where the rub is: What right has the billing company, on the basis of the four bills that are mere estimates, to decide whether or not a household is entitled to the eco-reduction?

An estimate is an estimate, by any other name and it is the actual name that the company gives to these four bills of the six issued during its financial 12 months.

Let's go back to that household with the quota of 100 units every two months that entitles the household to the eco-reduction. What if the company sends an estimated reading (covering two months) showing that consumption was 105 units when in fact it was 99 units? How would the household know that its precise consumption for the period in question was 99 units? It will know from the smart meter installed.

So, in the example just given, the company deems that the household is not entitled to the eco-reduction when, in fact, the smart meter says otherwise. To the company, its estimated bill carries more weight than the customer's actual reading as indicated by the very meter installed by the company itself! The one the company named as "smart"!

But this is not the end of the shell-game ARMS Ltd is playing with its customers. Before the company's managerial shake-up (OK, shake-out) hard on the heels of the March 2013 change in government, the eco-reduction was calculated on the basis of the company's entire 12 months of its financial year, not on the two months covered by each of the six bills now issued by the company.

And that is the second whammy. In the example given, since the family was entitled to a quota of 100 units every two months, then before March 2013 it would have been entitled to 600 units for the whole year.

What advantage did the consumer have before March 2013 that was taken away from him after the said managerial shake-out? Then, but not now, the consumer had a whole year to monitor consumption. If, in the four winter months, consumption exceeded the 200 units (parcelled out to him under the current system), there was the likelihood in the succeeding months to consume less than the quota allotted to him for the whole year.

So, if in the four winter months, the household in the example consumed more than 100 units for each of the two months each of the bills now covers, under the current system the household would lose out twice on being entitled to the eco-reduction.

But in the former system (before the shake-out) the household would lose out on benefitting from the eco-reduction only if it consumed more than 600 units for the whole year, irrespective of its consumption during the period covered by the individual bills it received before year's end.

Therefore, what it then would lose on the roundabouts, it would gain on the swings. As it is now, what is not gained on the roundabouts is lost on the swings. And that is where the double-(barrelled) whammy hits the customer, point blank.

Knowing the Spaghetti-Western attitude of the head honchos on any totem pole remotely linked to government since March 2013, I'll bet my silver bullet that ARMS Ltd will stick to its guns despite an apparent flouting of consumer-protection law.

Should the Consumer-Protector Minister Helena Dalli not step in to wet ARMS Ltd's powder?

Yes, Minister. Has not ARMS Ltd, in its charming, disarming way, got us over a barrel (or two) as it rifles our pockets?

Joe Genovese

BIRKIRKARA