Billing period 12/15/09 - 01/15/10

I'm back.................

Got my bill the other day.

It's wrong.

Again.

It was at that moment I decided to start this blog.

Bill shows meter reading previous 567 (remember it was reread at 487 last month)

Bill shows meter reading current 579

I waltz out to the far corner of my property (in the freezing cold.....34F in Texas, so I'm aggravated as it is) - and read the meter It's reading 491 (that's four hundred and ninety one......rounded up)

They say I used 12k in the bill (and if their beginning figure was correct they'd be saying I used 92k) when, in fact, I actually used 4k.

Because I'm cold - and I've been working overtime for the past week, and I miss my husband, and I'm generally a little stressed out....I sat on this bill until Monday (I received it on Thursday).

1/11/10 Monday

11am - Called the water company. Sat on hold 12 minutes and had to hand up because my first break is only 15 minutes



3pm - Called the water company. Sat on hold 14 minutes when Debra answered. I asked her if she had my information on her screen. She said she did. I told her I had two issues. First issue was the fact that the previous reading should have been changed with the re-read. She put me on hold for 3 minutes (yay for stopwatch function on my iPod Touch) - came back and said she'd need to research this with her manager - I could call her back later. I told her I would call her tomorrow morning, but I wanted to give her the other issue now because I had to get back to work. I told her to please schedule yet another re-read because the current reading is wrong. Explained I walked out and read 491 on the meter. She said she'd arrange for a re-read.

1/12/10 Tuesday

9:49am dialed the number and went through their hoops of entering acct info and verifying acct info

9:51am - got put into the que to speak with a rep (put on hold). Auto sytem says estimated wait time 8 minutes.

10:14 - Got off hold. ACTUAL wait time 23 minutes .....

Spoke with Gwen. She said that Debra arranged for a re-read and it could take 3-5 business days for them to come out. I told her I estimate my usage at 4K gallons based on my (correct) meter readings, and I'd like to pay for that usage.... is that possible. She said it was, and that she'd figure it out for me. Base price for the privilige of having the water pumped $36 a month + $2 for every thousand gallons used + 1% feel for some agency that's required = $44.40 water bill. I paid, and she put an extension on my due date so they don't shut my water off for not paying the $60 something they say I owe before the numbers can be adjusted. Still nobody knows why the ending meter reading wasn't changed to reflect the correct numbers.

Hopefully this is it for this billing period....... we'll see