The Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) on Monday apologised to a small hotel owner in Surat Thani's Koh Samui district for miscalculating her usage and sending her a bill for more than 11 million baht last month.
Thanaphan Tiasuwan, director-general of PEA's Communication Affairs Division, said the agency discussed the error in the bill calculation with Apassanant Pattharapisithorn after the story went viral on social media.
Ms Apassanant originally posted a picture of the bill for July for the eight-room hotel on a dedicated Thai consumer protection website.
In the image, she is seen showing her horror at the news the hotel had consumed a shocking 5,099,939.87 units of electricity and racked up a bill of 11,780,004.62 baht.
Ms Apassanant said that her hotel normally only pays between 30,000–50,000 baht for its electricity so she immediately rang the Koh Samui PEA call centre but was diverted to an answerphone message asking her to call back on Thursday following the holiday weekend.
Anxious, she took to Facebook to air her grievance.
"[Koh Samui PEA's] call centre said that I have to wait until Aug 3 to hear back from them. I'm really concerned," she posted.
Eventually, the PEA apologised and explained that it was an employee keying a digit into the wrong row, which had jacked up the total charge.
The Koh Samui PEA has also assured Ms Apassanant that her amended July bill will be for 46,878.20 baht.