PMAlliance, Inc.

This customer interaction was with the Central Collections Division which is a different department/office; however, I will try to address the complaint.Bills must be paid within 35 days to avoid the assessment of the delinquent payment fee and interruption of services.  Payment must be...

received by 5:00 p.m. on the 35th day to avoid assessment of the delinquent payment fee and interruption of  services.  On line and telephone payments are processed through a third-party payment service, [redacted].  Whether payment is made by phone or on-line, a message states that it takes 2-3 business days for payments to be received by the City, and if the customer is within five days of a disconnect date they must call in the confirmation number to the Central Collections Office at ###-###-#### and leave the confirmation number to avoid disconnect.  According to the telephone records, no confirmation number was called in for this account.  Because a confirmation number was  not provided by the 35th day, the account was assessed the late fee.  If services are disconnected, the outstanding balance and the delinquent payment fee must be paid before services are reconnected.  The payment made on line did not include the delinquent fee nor the penalty. Based on the payment time-line the late charges were appropriately charged to the account.

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted]. As stated to them the day I went in to the business, I tried to contact the number provided on the automated system, nothing would go through. Whether there were issues with the phone, I don't know. There are so many complaints going on with our utility company it's not even funny, so I'm not the only one. Obviously nothing is going to get resolved so me writing back does no good.
Regards,
[redacted]

I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
The delinquent fee should not be charged as my payment was made before the 35 days. 
Regards,
[redacted]

We have reviewed the customer’s meter operations and the meter is correctly measuring the consumption.  Based on the customer’s statement for the heating source, electric plug-in heaters are notorious for being an inefficient and expensive heating  source, and the customer stated she is...

using 4  small electric heaters.  The graph which she was provided is in 6-day increments so any fluctuation of consumption is over a 6-day period instead of a single day period.   I believe each time that someone talked to this customer , they explained that the meter operation was correct and the problem was the actual consumptions used during the heating months of December and January when we experienced the coldest weather of the season, approximately January 5-January 12, with below freezing temps for several consecutive days.

I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Payment was made well before day 38 I have bank statements to prove it 
Regards,
[redacted]

I am writing in response to the complaint filed with you by Ms. [redacted] on November 13, 2017. The complaint regarded customer service provided by the City of Danville Utilities and Collections Division.The City recently implemented a new online customer portal and there is one...

problem that we are working with our vendor to correct. If a customer has a past due balance and there is a new monthly utility bill in the process of being created and posted to the customer's account, the past due balance will not display properly. Under these circumstances, the past due balance is shown as less than the actual amount owed.Ms. [redacted] is correct that her statement that the amount shown online as her past due balance subjected to disconnection was incorrect. In this case, the amount displayed was $153.88 and should have been $188.66. As a result, her online payment of $153.88 was not sufficient to avoid disconnection. This was unfortunate as Ms. [redacted] was trying to prevent an interruption in service by paying online. The customer had received a printedbill in the mail and also received a delinquency notice in the mail. Both of these documents had the correct amount owed.Once disconnected, Ms. [redacted] called and learned that she in fact owed the additional amount. The customer could have made another online payment and service would have been restored very soon thereafter. Ms. [redacted] made her payment in person at our Collections Division. When Ms. [redacted] came in to make her payment, one of our cashiers was off that day, and another cashier was at lunch, so there was likely only one or twolines open in the lobby, in addition to our drive through window. I am sure she had to wait longer than normal.We do not charge customers a disconnection fee or a reconnection fee. Customers have about 50 days to pay a bill before being subject to disconnection. There is a delinquent charge for any bill that goes 35 days past the due date. Ms. [redacted] had two past due bills at that time, one was due on September 25, 2017, and the other on October 25, 2017, so she had been assessed the delinquent account fee. This incident on November 13 didnot add any additional fees to her account.In summary, the City of Danville did provide inaccurate information through the online portal, but had mailed multiple items to the customer with correct balances shown. The disconnection was inconvenient for the customer, but service was restored very soon after all past due charges had been paid.Please feel free to contact me should you need any additional information.Sincerely, [redacted]Director of Finance[redacted]