BIG BILLS LEFT HER FEELING POWERLESS

Police may have found no hydro bypasses last week at 28 townhomes that
contained marijuana grow operations but a Coquitlam woman says someone
was running up the bills at one residence in her name.

Sara, who didn't want her last name to be published, said she got wind
something was up at CrescentView Townhomes on Cape Horn Avenue when BC
Hydro sent her a bill for servicing last November and demanding a $720
security deposit.

"It took me a couple of seconds to realize it wasn't for my home," she
said.

The address on the bill was for 32-2665 Cape Horn Ave., one of the 28
townhomes in the complex in which Mounties last Friday uncovered a pot
farm or remnants of a pot farm. In total, police removed 2,181 pot
plants from nine units and found 19 other townhomes had had grow-ops.

Sara complained to BC Hydro, which advised her to call Coquitlam RCMP
to report the fraudulent account. Sara said she was told not to
disconnect the service because police were investigating a possible
pot farm at the unit. "I felt pretty confident, at that point,
something was going to be done about the situation," she said.

But a month later, Sara received a final notice for disconnection to
the Cape Horn address. Again, she notified BC Hydro and police that
she had no knowledge of the hook-up.

Still, the Crown Corporation sent her a $1,852.43 bill in January for
the outstanding amount. "I'm going through a difficult pregnancy and I
was like, I don't need this," she said.

Finally, last month, BC Hydro sent Sara two letters to confirm the
account was fake and her name was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Sara reckons whoever illegally opened the hydro account in her name
got her personal information from her purse, which was stolen in
December 2003 while she and her husband were living at an apartment
block on Schoolhouse Street. Ironically, she said, the manager of that
complex was Nacel Properties Ltd., which also manages the CrescentView
townhomes.

BC Hydro's Elisha Moreno said fraudulent hydro accounts are rare. The
company was approached last November to have the account activated in
Sara's name. "When someone calls to open a new account, we don't
cross-check identities if we know this is an existing customer," she
said.

Moreno said it's up to the customer to contact companies that have
their credit information when their identity is stolen.

Still, Sara said she now has to "jump through five million hoops" with
BC Hydro to prove who she is. "It's good but it's frustrating that I
had to get to this point," she said. "It just turns into a huge hassle."