Electric company conundrum

Traditionally electric companies come by your house and read the outdoor meter to charge you for your electric uses. Alright, sounds good....I'm sure a few peoples life long dream is to read meters. Anyway, the conundrum comes from living in the city, New York City to be exact. All the meters in this city are inside the building....hmmmmm. Thats a problem. How do those guys get in to read the meters? Answer: They don't. They estimate your monthly bill...???? Huh? Estimate? Yes they estimate. The question: Where does the estimate come from? First, let me clear something up...I have never, ever seen a utiltiy meter reader man. So what is the basis for estimate. Last month they claimed that I used $68 in electricity. Thats horse shit! Of course it was and "estimated bill". Seeing that it was my first electric bill in my new apartment they could have no way known how much electricity "I" would use. Correct? So are they just pulling this number from the sky? Is this an estimate based on the last person that lived there? What if they had six TV's, eight radios and 12 refrigerators plugged in and running 24/7? Or did they estimate from the previous, previous renter. This is an outrage! I refuse to believe I used $68 worth of electricity. This is proposterous....there is now way they could give me a fair estimate. ConEdison can go to hell!