Blogging My Life...
Last night I have a voicemail on my home phone from the water company, United Water.
They said I have not paid my water bill and will be shutting off my water. It is kind of funny, over the weekend, I told my wife that I find it interesting that we never received a water bill since moving in. I then forgot about it and did not call them to find out what is going on.
This morning I called and told them, I received a phone call that I did not pay my bill. They asked from my address and city. I gave it to them and the woman said, your city is not X it is either A, B or C. I said no, it is X. So she finally found my city under A and I said, that is why I never got a bill, I live in X not A. Following me? ;-)
She then asked me, "Did you ever call the post office about this?" I said about what? She replied, "well, they never sent us the bill back, we never got it sent back to us." I replied, how am I supposed to know to call the post office for something I never saw? I cannot explain why they didn't mail you the bill back - you may want to call them about that.
In any event, after a stupid argument, I said - forget the post office. How do I pay up my bill now and how can I make sure you change my city from A to X? She then took my credit card down, I am sure I paid crazy late fees and service charges. And then she promised she changed my city.
A straight forward call did not have to be so aggravating. I mean, how do I control what the US post office does or does not do?
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Comments
It feels almost like Deja Vu. I had a similar problem with my natural gas bill after I moved into a new house. I had to cancel the service at my old house and give the gas company my new address.
Despite calling them several times on why I didn't get a gas bill and each time they asked me for my account number which took for ever to work through. Eventually the bill showed up, for almost 18 months of usage plus late fee charges and since it was a new house they assumed the meter was at 0 when I moved in, etc.
Fortunately, I had documented everything including the meter reading and stood firm. I got them to reverse all late fees, charge based on the meter reading I had called in (of course they had no documentation) and then they agreed to installment payments without interest.
Only big utilities sanctioned by various levels of government can get away this and survive.
Posted by: Alan K'necht | November 19, 2008 9:50 AM
Move to Israel. They never lose track of you here. You always get the bills, even the television tax people (yes there's a TV tax in Israel) can find you if you move and don't notify them.
Posted by: Olivier Amar | November 19, 2008 10:13 AM
A Television Tax?!
Posted by: Tim Cohn | November 19, 2008 11:37 AM
that is very funny
hopefully your bill wasnt to high
i feel like u get this alot if i remember correct about something at your office to with lights and u got crazy fees
pretty funny
Posted by: water | November 20, 2008 8:15 AM