Not paying your electricity bill is futile. This would result in your power supply being cut off, causing you great discomfort. There are holdouts, though — for a legitimate reason.

Manila resident Mariz Acebron could not pay the P9,000 electricity bill she received last year, so her power was disconnected. Acebron coped by getting power from her relative next door in Gawad Kalinga Village, Baseco Compound, and paying her share of the electric bill to light up her small house.

In August, to her surprise, Acebron received an electric bill for P24,000. GMA Integrated News reported that she protested the bill, saying her meter had long been disconnected. The utility firm promised to look into Acebron’s complaint.

There was no further advice from the utility company, so Acebron thought it was settled — until she received a new bill in December charging her P134,000 for power consumption. She again complained to the utility company, which told her that her line was reconnected, so she was billed again.

Meanwhile, in Zurich, Switzerland, city employees were recently shocked but happy to receive twice the amount of their salaries for February on Monday.

The city’s finance department blamed the Zurich Cantonal Bank for the double payment. A technical processing error was pinned on the bank’s software from a supplier of telecoms operator Swisscom.

The department asked the 30,000 employees who received the extra 175 million Swiss francs ($200 million) to return the overpayment.