Class action launched against Nova Scotia Power over data breach, alleged overbilling

A Nova Scotia injury law firm is launching a class action lawsuit against Nova Scotia Power in light of this past spring’s cyberattack.

In May, the private utility announced nearly 300,000 ratepayers had their private information stolen. The compromised data included names, birth dates, email addresses, home addresses, customer account information, driver’s licence numbers and, in some cases, bank account numbers and social insurance numbers.

Since the breach, Nova Scotia Power says it’s been having difficulties with its remote meter readings and acknowledged it’s led to inaccurate bills being sent out.

MacGillivray Law’s CEO says a statement of claim is being filed in Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Friday with the aim of holding the company to account.

“We’ve been hearing concern about people’s social insurance numbers being compromised, concerns around that (but) more direct concerns and more passionate concerns about the billing issues,” said Jamie MacGillivray.

“We’re hearing about a lot of errors in billing. And usually it’s the ones we’re hearing about, they’re having to pay more, not less. And they’re checking the meters and it doesn’t jive.”

He says people who have reached out to the law firm are already struggling with high costs and being overbilled by the utility is an added hardship. He says the company also owes it to the public to be transparent about what went wrong.

“Why weren’t they transparent about the billing? Why didn’t they tell the customers and the regulator, ‘Look, our billing system doesn’t work, your digital meters do not work,'” he said.

Danielle Fraser, the representative plaintiff in the proposed class action, says she’s heard from hundreds of people — and keeps a spreadsheet of names — who are impacted by the data breach and billing problems.

“The stories that I’m getting, the cyber attack hit people quite hard. I have quite a few …whose bank account has been compromised. They’re receiving thousands of emails a day, they weren’t able to log into certain things, credit cards have been compromised. So there is some real financial impact on some people,” she said.

“I want Nova Scotia Power to be accountable. Nova Scotians deserve to have reliable electricity. This is an essential service,” she said.

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On Nov. 25, Nova Scotia Power’s CEO, Peter Gregg, told a legislative committee the company is “securely restoring the communication link” and working to correct the bills.

“The meters throughout this event have recorded accurate usage. We’re confident the accurate energy usage on each meter is accurate. So once we connect those we can actually use the actual data,” he said.

Gregg also said Nova Scotians will not be on the hook for the costs associated with the security breach, through a combination of insurance coverage and “some costs that we have expensed in this year already.”

On Wednesday, Premier Tim Houston wrote a letter to the Nova Scotia Energy Board requesting an investigation into how Nova Scotia Power has been billing customers since the breach.

“It’s not lost on me or the board that knowingly overbilling would constitute regulatory fraud and misreporting revenue to the markets is a form of securities fraud,” Houston said in his letter.

A Nova Scotia Power spokesperson has since said the utility is complying with all securities and regulatory laws, and dismisses any suggestion to the contrary.

MacGillivray Law says more than 1,000 people have come forward. The next step will be to receive certification from the court, which would then permit the lawsuit to proceed.

A spokesperson from Nova Scotia Power told Global News they had no comment in regards to the proposed class action.

— with a file from The Canadian Press