Yesterday I received not one but two water bills. I immediately called City Hall to question why we were getting two bills. The clerk said it was because we were using water from a meter that had been inactive. We have two water meters on our property and one of them we had turned off about 10 years ago. I informed the clerk that we were not using water from that meter, we had not requested it to be turned on. If someone was using water from that meter, then it was being stolen or somehow the pipelines to another home got crossed. ( We got some new houses built out here) She said it was our problem, and we would have to pay for it regardless of who was using it.
I hung up with her as I was getting nowhere. I studied the bills and could see that the amount of water used was identical to our real bill and the meter readings were identical also. Someone used the figures off our meter we were using for both meters. I called and talked to the same clerk and called her attention to the figures. She said she would look into it and said to go to the inactive meter and get a present reading and call back. My husband then went out and after several minutes came back in to say that whoever read the inactive meter must have had X-ray vision because it was buried under several layers of dirt. So I called the clerk back again, she said she was sending a meter reader out. I asked how long was this going to take, since we had appointments to go to. She said it would be within the hour,
My husband, not wanting them to come out and just read our active meter and say they were right, stood at the inactive meter for over an hour, waiting. The temperature was 101 degrees. Nobody showed up.
I called back to City Hall and the clerk I had been dealing with was out to lunch. I then asked if someone else could help me and tell me when the meter reader was coming out to verify our inactive meter. This person told me that no meter reader was coming out, the first clerk had voided the bill when I brought her attention to the identical readings for both meters.
I was so angry, couldn't the first clerk just told us that to begin with? My husband stood out in horrible heat for nothing. She just didn't want to admit to a mistake. I asked if I could have a new bill, showing zero balance and was told no, I just wouldn't receive bills on the inactive account again.
I told the second clerk I was going to file a complaint with the Public Utility Commission. But when I called there I found out that the water department of the city is unregulated. They get to treat us like crap and get away with it.
I wrote a letter to the City Manager about how this clerk treated us. I don't expect anything to come from it but it helped a bit anyway. I called City Hall, one last time before I wrote the letter, I got the first clerk and asked for her full name. She gave it to me, asked who I was, and she still couldn't apologize for the crap she pulled.
City workers are scum. ( Well not all of them just the idiot ones)
Thanks for letting me vent.
Sadie