Sixty-year-old restaurateur Julian Agius has blown his fuse after his wife Carmen last week received a €1,981 bill for water and electricity consumption in a property they never heard about.
They were also warned that if they failed to pay up, the electricity supply of their home would be cut.
To make matters worse, when Mr Agius contacted Enemalta to say there must have been some sort of mistake, a customer care representative suggested his wife may be living elsewhere or that she had set up a shop behind his back.
"This is absurd. Is that something a customer care representative should say? I hate to think of all the people being treated this way and forced to pay bills that are not theirs," Mr Agius said.
"We received the first bill in June last year. I called and e-mailed time and time again but I never got a response. Then, I decided to let it pass and, all of a sudden, we received this new bill. They even came knocking on our door telling us that if we don't pay they will cut off our supply."
He said he always paid his bills within three days of receiving them and had never been late on a payment because he used online billing. Besides resorting to the press to put pressure on the authorities to stop issuing his wife with wrong bills, Mr Agius also decided to track down the mystery house in Santa Maria Street, Sliema. And that's when the penny dropped.
The mystery house was actually a shop called Carmen's, presumably owned by another Carmen Agius from Sliema.
"I'm ready to pay even double or triple this amount as long as they give me the keys to the place. I think it's worth it," Mr Agius said, happy the place was a commercial property in a prime area.
But despite his sense of humour, Mr Agius was quick to add that such mistakes could not be as easily resolved by more vulnerable people, who were at risk of having their electricity cut off through no fault of their own.
The case was first highlighted by Labour leader Joseph Muscat last Sunday. Following questions sent to Enemalta by The Times, the situation was resolved.
Enemalta's credit control section said the matter was rectified and the system updated to solve the problem, which seemed to result from mistaken identity between two women by the same name.
"Together with Arms Ltd and Water Services (Corporation), we are looking into the matter to see how this happened and make sure it does not happen again," a spokesman said.