[saveferris]

I dont know what the policies are now but I was an inspector for the electric company (PSE&G in north Jersey) for a few summers in college. Mostly, someone would call in about their bill being high and we'd go check and find someone had run power from their meter so they were paying for a neighbor. We'd report it, someone would come out and usually just remove the offender. I don't even think they even tried to find out where it went. As far as I know the matter was dropped at that point. No charges filed, etc. even though it was theft of some kind since it was intentional.

Maybe today with EVs there is a different approach. I don't know. Some of the things people would do not to play their electric bill were literally shocking :-)