Aqua Ohio

Aqua Ohio's position is that the service was terminated for non-payment of an undisputed delinquent account On May 15, 2015, Aqua Ohio issued a fifteen day termination notice for a past due account balance in the amount of $***.** The proposed service termination date was on or after June 01, The customer did not contact the company to dispute the bill or establish a payment arrangementThis resulted in the service being terminated on June 04, On June 04, 2015, The customer contacted the company's after hour service to report that they had no waterThe representative explained that the service was terminated for non-payment The customer called the company again on June 05, 2015, during business hours, and advised that they did not receive a termination noticeThe representative informed the customer that a termination notice was mailed to the service address on May 15, At the time of the call, the customer made a payment in the amount of $***.**This payment includes the past due amount $***[redacted] and a $**[redacted] reconnection chargeThe service was reconnected same date, June 05, According to the customer, there were several months where they did not receive their billing statement in a timely mannerOur records show that the bills are mailed between the 15th and 19th of each month The company has no record of the customer calling to report untimely bills In the future, if the customer does not receive the bills by the 19th of the month, they should contact the company immediately to report the issue and request the balance due or duplicate billing statement The company notified the customer of the proposed service termination by mailing a fifteen day termination notice to the service address and leaving a three day notice at the propertyAdditionally, NCO, a third party collection agency, placed a call to the customer on May 26, regarding the past due balanceThe customer is responsible for paying the $**[redacted] reconnection charge The customer also inquired about company policy requiring an adult to be present during the reconnection of serviceThis is to ensure that there are no plumbing issues or water flooding during the reconnection process

An audit of accounts revealed that this customer's account was estimated at zero consumption for the period September - December A Field Service Representative was dispatched to the property to inspect the meter and obtain an actual meter reading The FSR visited the property on 12/16/Duing the visit, the representative detected a faulty meter reading deviceThe faulty device was replaced and an actual meter reading of obtained The estimated bills were cancelled and a revised billing statement, based on an actual meter reading, was issued on 12/19/ [redacted] contacted Aqua on 01/10/inquiring about the revised bill issued on 12/19/A company representative explained that the company did not bill water usage charges during the period September - December 2013, due to the inability to obtain an actual meter reading from the meter reading deviceThe representative also explained the new charges The company's position is that it is not uncommon for an account to be billed zero consumption for several monthsIn most cases, the property is vacant As such, it is company practice to audit accounts that have zero consumption for days or moreThese accounts are investigated immediately The company issued a revised billing statement which includes charges for the water that registered on the meterUnfortunately, the company cannot honor the customer's request to remove the December charges In the futuere, If the customer receives two or more bills based on an estimated meter reading, the customer should immediately contact the company for investigation