Aqua New Jersey, Inc.

Review: I have been with aqua water for 2 years, and within this time I have never been treated so disrespectful. My bill for the month of Jan 2014 was a total of 66.67 dollars, on witch I was late due to hospitalizations. Charges for the month of Feb estimated another 60 dollars. My water was shut off 02/25/2014 due to a balance of 66.67 dollars and only being one month and 3 days behind on my bill. I had advised the company that a check for 120 dollars was sent out Monday 02/24/2014. They refused to provide water back to me unless I paid a fee of 50 dollars plus and additional 85 dollars. The total of 265 dollars is due before they will reinstate my water. I am a single mother with a disabled child, they are aware that this home resides a child disabled and on Social Security Income. This is not only ridiculous, but I feel as if it is a way to scam people into paying extra fees.Desired Settlement: I would like them to promptly turn my water back on, and to remove the additional fees. I will gladly pay them through a credit card and stop check payment if they want the 120.67 dollars of amount owed now.

Business

Response:

Aqua New Jersey Inc. is a regulated water and sewer utility. Aqua's is required to follow the regulations set by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

Per the regulations- a 10 day termination notice is mailed to customer who has a past due balance. As a courtesy, a phone call is made in attempt to reach the customer before termination takes place.

[redacted] bill was past due, proper notice was sent to the resident. The payment mention in the complaint was not received. The $85.00 deposit required is placed on the customer’s account, plus interest to apply to the customer's account. The deposit will be refunded or applied after one year as long as the account remains in good standings.

Please contact me should you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Review: In early 2015, March, I discovered that my bill had not changed in a few months. I contacted Aqua because I did not want to receive a large bill in the future. While on the phone, the representative stated that I was not currently paying sewage. That is all was said. The next bill I received was for over $2,000 dollars. I called the company in regards to this situation multiple times and was to receive a return call but never did. I was not given the opportunity to go on a payment plan either. One day, I went to turn on the water in my home and it was off! They had placed my account in delinquency a month after they told me they had made an error in my account and did not charge me for sewage for the last 4 years. From my understanding, you are to get the same amount of time that you were not charged to pay back the money. This was not exactly satisfying to me considering I always paid my bills on time and they turned my water off. I finally came to an agreement in August. Months after I initially called and decided to go on a payment plan. This month, I received yet another bill stating I owed them even more money. I do not believe I should continue to suffer for their billing errors. I have been paying over $120 per month to try and catch up but they continue to make errors. This is extremely frustrating and I have received the worst customer service. I never received call backs or straight answers.Desired Settlement: I do not believe I should have to pay any funds due their billing errors. I should not pay anything for bringing the error to them and being a good Samaritan. I feel like I am being taken advantage of and they have turned my water off in the process. I have never been late on a payment in 8 years using their services. I believe my billing should start fresh and I should pay moving forward.

Business

Response:

Aqua America is a regulated utility and we are required to allow a customer to pay a “back bill” over the same amount of time that it took to accrue the amount in the back bill. In this instance, the customer established service with Aqua in July 2007 and was only billed for water. When the error was captured and the account was reviewed Aqua determined as a courtesy, due to the oversight, we would only “back bill” the customer for “4 years” of sewer charges (from September 2010 to September 2014) as opposed to the entire “7 years” of sewer charges starting from when the account was established back in July 2007. We provided a discount by back billing the customer for lesser years on the sewer charges. Therefore the customer was charged the “lower rate” effective 3/1/14 at $51.98 per month for 4 years as opposed to the “higher rate” effective 3/1/15 at $61.40 per month for 4 years. In addition, there was also a meter exchange completed on the customer’s account on 6/3/15 where the meter was taken out due to 258 days of zero consumption and as another courtesy, the customer was only charged for 100 gallons.

[redacted] currently has a payment arrangement on his account and is responsible for the "back billed" charges.

Review: Water company to my home without any prior notice of a late payment and shut off my water over $200. I have a disabled father and a pregnant wife dealing with this issue. I was lied to and told it would be switched on today and it is not. Absolutely horrible company.Desired Settlement: Turn on and given an option for a new water company

Business

Response:

When [redacted] balance exceeded the delinquency threshold, a “10 day” shut-off notice was mailed out to him on 8/12/15. On 8/21/15 our third-party collection agency ([redacted]) made an attempt to contact the customer to notify of the balance past due and on 8/31/15, the customer’s water service was suspended due to “non-payment”. [redacted] called Aqua on 8/31/15 to provide the “confirmation number” for the payment made to restore his water service and was told in error by a customer service representative that his water could not be reconnected the same day. The customer called back and spoke with another representative and was correctly informed that his water could indeed be restored the same day and a service order was generated. [redacted]s water service was turned back on after 6pm on 8/31/15.

Review: I mailed and faxed AQUA my Landlord revert form December 2014 after bought a rental property at [redacted] last year. I downloaded the landlord revert form at AQUA webpage, and the mailing address and fax numbers are displayed on landlord revert form.

I made a phone call later in order to make sure AQUA has got my landlord revert form. And re-Faxed AQUA 3 more times my landlord revert form(6/4/2015, 7/20/2015 and 10/6/2015), including a new fax phone number got from AQUA customer service, and AQUA has confirmed they got my landlord revert form the last time10/6/2015, but I still got an account activation fee after all.

And today my husband [redacted] just made another phone call and AQUA still kept saying my landlord revert form has not set up yet, and gave us the same fax number as the one I got before from AQUA customer service.

The files attached are the faxed files to AQUA I faxed before. A simple thing made us very upset and tired, and got no result, and keep doing doing faxing faxing mailing mailing again again and again, and then after all we were told AQUA still has not received our landlord revert form.

AQUA's Landlord revert form is a form: when a tenant at the address is moving out of the property, and AQUA will automatically put account in landlord name without any account activation fee charge.

Hope problems could fix this time

ThanksDesired Settlement: AQUA will remove the account activation fee from my last bill, and set up my landlord revert form this time

Business

Response:

The customer provided the company with a copy of their fax confirmation pages as proof that they previously faxed two Landlord Revert forms. Because the company did not process the forms in a timely manner, an Account Activation Charge was applied to the customer's account.

After thorough investigation, the company located and immediately processed the Landlord Revert forms. Additionally, the $31.76 Account Activation Charge was removed from the customer's account.

A company representative contacted the customer and apologized for the delay in processing their request. The representative also explained that the Account Activation Charge had been removed. The customer expressed satisfaction with the resolution.

Aqua Ohio's position is that the company did not process this customer's forms in a timely manner. We have since identified the root cause and corrective action for this internal processing delay.

Review: Aqua is issuing inaccurate billing statements and when disputed, rather than resolving the dispute, cutting off water service to charge reconnect fees on multiple occasions. Aqua is conducting FRADULENT billing practices.Desired Settlement: - Reimbursement of fraudulent fees charged for reconnect on multiple occasions because they charged the wrong fee in the first place, sent multiple conflicting billing statements and when disputed, did not provide a remedy.

- Provide sufficient time for a customer to remedy. You dont cut people off if they are late by 30 days. Especially when its a utility. They must follow due process.

Business

Response:

The customer states that Aqua is billing their account based

on wrong meter reads which is resulting in high bills and that they were

charged twice for the reconnect and deposit fees due to being “shut-off for

non-payment”. Our policy states that customers who are shut off for

non-payment are to pay a deposit fee (if required) in order to have water

restored. The deposit fee will be in addition to paying the required

balance owed and a reconnect charge. When [redacted] balance exceeded

the delinquency threshold, a “10 day” shut-off notice was mailed out to him on

10/7/15. On 10/16/15 our third-party collection agency ([redacted]) made an

attempt to contact the customer to notify of the balance past due and on

10/26/15, the customer’s water service was suspended due to “non-payment”.

An $85.00 deposit was already applied to the customer’s account as a result of

a previous “shut-off for non-payment” (SONP) that occurred on 8/24/15 so

only a $50.00 reconnect fee was applied to the account due to the most recent

shut-off for non-payment that occurred on 10/26/15. Also, with regard to

the concern of incorrrect meter reads and billing, a field service rep stated

that the read at time of shut off indicates the meter reads have been

correct. In addition our field rep noted that the customer has a large

lot with an irrigation system which would cause an increase in their usage

during the summer months. After reviewing the customer usage history,

there is an increase in usage during the summer months and a decrease in usage during

the winter months.