Have you ever seen one of those Youtube videos where an idiot hands another idiot a beer and says "hey watch this"? Well today I talked to one of those idiots on the phone at their day job.
Let me preface this for by saying it's been month after month of complications because my firm has had two REO properties that have the same private water company. Two different banks own them. Every single month the water company has screwed up the bill on one or both of them. One of them sold two weeks ago so I thought all my problems would be over, but not so fast.
My buyer called to schedule the water service being transferred to her name. My agent called to tell them to read the meter and send us our final bill. Today we got a bill for the OTHER property which would be fine except it didn't have credit for the check we sent for last month's bill. Sigh, deep breath and dial the phone, in that order.
On hold, do do do do do, do do da do da, still on hold and this goes on and on for 10 minutes like being trapped in an elevator. Finally the idiot says "thanks for calling customer service, how may I screw help you today? I explain that I have bill for house A in my hand and it doesn't show a credit for last months check. Oh and I also tell them I've obtained a copy from my bank and verified that said water company actually deposited the check and it's cleared my account. I further ask where the bill is for the other house that I should have had the Final Bill a week ago.
House A that is still listed they have turned the water OFF. The one I got the bill for, that does NOT say final bill anywhere on it has been turned off. House B that we sold was credited the check for the House A and has a credit balance and is still in our firm's name. Nope they can't fix it, they can't funds from account B and put on Account A. Not to mention House B should have been in the buyer's name as of the 13th of this month.
When you read how screwed up this is you might thing I did something foolish like write one check for both bills, nope, I wrote two. You might even assume I mailed them in the same envelope, nope mailed them separately. Each had the little stub from the bill with a unique account number and each check had the account number on the memo line. And I mailed them on different days because I knew that idiots worked in the billing department.
Not only did they assure me there is NO WAY to fix this screw up, they also said they wanted to charge me turn the water back on at House A that it should still be on. I asked to speak to a supervisor (like I do every month) and none was available. They said one would call me back (like they do every month). In the morning, I'll go to work, check my emails and call them again (like I do every month). And I'm really really looking forward to trying to explain this mess to asset managers.
If they don't fix things in the morning then this southern fairy tale will NOT end for happily ever after for the water company.
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