PHOENIX — Attorney General Kris Mayes is using state consumer fraud laws to force the state’s largest electric utility to stop disconnecting customers for nonpayment of their bills during the hottest days of the year.
The deal, agreed to by Arizona Public Service, prohibits it from cutting customer power when the temperature is expected to hit 95 or higher. Right now the utility says it won’t unplug customers only between June 1 and Oct. 15.
But Mayes said that’s not sufficient. And the proof, she said, is the May 2024 death of 82-year-old Kate Korman whose service to her Sun City West home APS remotely disconnected due to nonpayment on a day when the temperature reached 99 degrees.
