The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA)

Review: I paid 250.00 on my Bill. Left a balance of 106.53. Ask if they could extend to 30th October. Said NO You are going to get a disconnection notice if you do not pay the rest of Bill. Ask to speack to the supervisior customerservice lady said do not wast your time she is going to say NO. Supervisior never returned my phone call. Next day talk to another person he said you are not going to get a disconnection notice because you paid 250.00 calec.on your bill. Supervisior nerver called me yet. Well the next I got the notice called the water companyand the same lady who was rude to me told me to pay it or I was getting shut off. THe supervisior never in all this time never returned my call.Desired Settlement: I would like them to make an arrangement with me. They have before I I always kept the arrangement and paid it . I ask to extend it to the 30th of October and I would pay 106.53.

Business

Response:

Attention: [redacted] Operations TeamRe: [redacted]Account Number: [redacted]Revdex.com Identification Number: [redacted]Dear Ms. [redacted]:This letter is in response to a complaint that was filed with your agency against The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority by [redacted]. According to your letter dated October 12, 2015 to The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, Ms. [redacted] contacted The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority requesting payment arrangements and an extension to October 30, 2015 to pay $106.53, the balance on her water account.On Monday, October 5, 2015, a Customer Service supervisor telephoned Ms. [redacted] at ###-###-#### to discuss this account and an answering system responded. The supervisor left a message for Ms. [redacted] at 4:39 p.m. This same day, a payment was made to this account.On Thursday, October 8, 2015, Ms. [redacted] contacted The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority to discuss this account. The total amount due on this account was $223.75. Ms. [redacted] made a payment on Friday, October 9, 2015, which made this account current.Please note all customers are sent a reminder notice if their water usage charges are past due.The steps to disconnect water service requires The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority to send the customer a 10-Day Termination Notice, telephone the customer, post a 48-Hour Termination Notice to the property, which informs the customer that there will be an interruption of water service.If you have additional questions regarding this complaint, please contact me at ###-###-#### or you may contact The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority Customer Service at ###-###-#### or via email at [redacted]. Our office hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time.Sincerely,[redacted]Senior Manager Customer Service[redacted]

Review: P.W.S.A. required me to have the meter changed, by them, in my property before selling the property. This meter change took place on Thursday June the 30th. I called on Friday June 31st and they told the final could be done now and that it would be ready in 3-5 days. My closing was on hold till this was resolved. I waited till Wednesday the 3rd of July to try again. They told me it was almost ready but Thursday was a holiday and definitely Friday. So I called on Friday the 5th and they told me please call back on Monday and they would fax it to me. I was calm and said that I understood. I called on Monday July 8th and was told that it would come today. I gave them my fax number for the third time and I waited. I did not raise my voice once or sound agitated. Tuesday the 9th of July, my closing is still on hold and I have nothing. I put in a phone call at 10:00am and was told that the supervisor will be faxing it to me between 3-4 pm today. It did not come. At 4:15 I called and they agreed that they did not send it. They promised it would be sent before 5pm. So its July 9th at 7:10 p.m. and still I do not have it. Every time I call its at least 20 minutes to get thru the prompts and wait on hold . I am extremely frustrated. It's been at least 10 days. I am a good customer with over 20 accounts.Desired Settlement: I would like the final water bill and an explanation as to why this happened.

Business

Response:

This letter is in response to The Revdex.com complaint number [redacted]. After thorough review, The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority has determined that both staffing changes and training led to a delay in processing final bill applications. A Customer Service Representative was recently assigned the task to process final bill applications, which led to a delayed response time. The final process has new policies in place to ensure each final is processed in a timely manner.

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The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any questions regarding this matter, please contact me at ###-###-####. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Customer Services Manager

Review: I have been enrolled in paperless billing for as long as I can remember, but things started to seem a bit off in the summer of 2014 after I unenrolled from automatic bill pay because I accidentally paid online in addition to the automatic pull from my account. Because I had paid double the bill in July, I was unsurprised by a null account balance in August. I waited all of the following month, September, for the bill to hit my account. When it didn't, I thought maybe the website was glitching and so I made a payment of the same amount as the last amount I had been listed as owing ($32.03) and sent an email to [redacted].

The PWSA has (or should have) a record of many emails in which I profess confusion and the responder repeatedly insists that I simply need to deposit a large sum of money into an account that is not in my name and is not an account number I've ever seen before. That is the most classic scam in history. I grew frustrated with the lack of explanation for why I should take the recommended action (which was also really fishy), so I called PWSA.

That first phone call was so relieving! I spoke to a very nice lady who said that everything was going to be okay. She explained that, in June, someone at PWSA had switched my account into the [redacted]. They did so without notifying me, without making notes as to why they did so, and without adding my name to the account. She said she put my name on the account. She said she transferred all the money I had paid into my account, which wasn't actually attached to a bill anymore and amounted to about $58, to this new account. I requested a paper bill start being sent to the house because I was having trouble with PWSA online, and she said she would have it sent over. I decided to give it a few days for the account changes to take affect, then try to view and pay the bill online.

The information in the email about how to view and pay the bill online was incorrect. I ended up calling again to try to figure it out and found out that I need to use my zip code, [redacted], not the [redacted] zip code, [redacted]. Even with this new information, logging in online didn't work. I was starting to get antsy, because the end of the month (October) was approaching and a paper flyer on my door had claimed that our water would be cut off at that time. The lady on the phone said that with all the recent notes on my account and since I had effected a payment (I told her about the transfer from old account to new), I was probably safe from turnoff. And anyway, a bill with information I needed was probably on its way, since someone had said they were sending it.

The bill never came. Someone came and turned our water off. I took time off work to spend four hours on various phone trees. I paid the past due amount, $120.59, via phone. They came and turned the water back on.

I then attempted to email the company about these problems several times and was met with unprofessional responses that failed to even acknowledge my problems.Desired Settlement: I am writing to make record of what has occurred so that I will hopefully not have to explain this all over again, to ask again for paper bills to be mailed to me, to request help paying online, and to request credits to my account equal to all charges not directly incurred by my house's water usage. A mistake was made by someone at PWSA when the change was made to my account without notification. We have been willing and trying to pay our bills in a timely manner, but not able to do so. We would like to resume paying our bills on time and will even sign up for paperless billing and autowithdraw once all this gets sorted. I REALLY, truly, passionately don't believe it is fair to charge us overages for this mess, and would like a refund for the fees incurred from the inefficient and disorganized customer service.

Review: They are overcharging me for water I did not use after they installed the water utilities smart meter. They have charged me $400.00 for the months of February and March of 2014. I am 74 years old and live alone. There is no way I could have used that amount of water in 2 months. They are threatening me to cut my water off tomorrow.Desired Settlement: Adjust my bill according to what my water bill should approx. $34.00 per month.

Business

Response:

Re: [redacted]Complaint Identification No. [redacted]Dear Ms. [redacted]:I am writing to you in response to your letter dated September 14, 2015 regarding a complaint submitted to you by Ms. [redacted] against The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. The following is a description of what transpired that may have prompted her dissatisfaction with the Authority.Ms. [redacted] had two (2) large invoices dated February 6, 2014 and March 7, 2014. Both invoiced amounts were based on actual meter readings. Ms. [redacted] advised The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority on February 18, 2014 that there was a leak on this properly coming from under the furnace.Ms. [redacted] submitted an appeal of the charges to the Water Exoneration Hearing Board and her appeal was denied on the bases of actual water consumption which registered through the meter.On April 8, 2014, Ms. [redacted] was offered a payment arrangement which she failed to uphold.If you have additional questions or require assistance in the future, please contact The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority Customer Service at ###-###-#### or send an email to [redacted]. Our office hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time.Sincerely,[redacted]Senior Manager, Customer Service

Review: I suspected a water leak back in May 2014 at a property I was putting on the market. I contacted PWSA and it took several phone calls and 8 weeks before they came out to dig up curb box and identify the issue. On July 21st I was finally told the leak was on THEIR side and I didn't have to do anything. A few more weeks and several more phone calls all initiated by me, and PWSA finally came out to turn water off and begin work; the whole while the property had to be listed with showing restrictions. August 14th, 3 MONTHS after the problem was reported, the water was shut off but I hadn't received any notification. Several MORE calls and 5 days later I contacted PWSA to file a complaint due to lack of correspondence and untimeliness. I was informed on August 19th that the leak was actually on MY side and now MY responsibility. I have made 6 attempts to speak to supervisor but have had no luck. Had PWSA workers done their job correctly to begin with this issue could have been resolved BEFORE I put the house up for sale and I could have been spared dozens of phone calls and lost man hours on my part. Not only was the service slow and incompetent but not ONCE was I ever notified or contacted about this issue.Desired Settlement: I would think after being a customer in good standing for 18 years that PWSA would offer to help offset some of the cost of the repairs as a good gesture to try to atone for the unacceptable level of service I experienced.

Review: I sent the following letter to PWSA in regards to me recieving a bill for $365 for one months services

To who this may concern:

My information is below :

Account name: [redacted]

Account number: [redacted] Address: [redacted]

On September 9, 2015 I received a shut off notice in the amount of 148.95. The next day I received a bill with a past due balance of $515 for the month of August, with current charges of $114 for September. My issue is that I never received a bill for August. And on my September bill there is no usage logged for August. I called into PWSA on 9/18 in regards to my bill and I spoke to Somorra twice who advised me that I should have called in sooner, and that I would be given a payment arrangement. I informed her while I ok with the arrangement, but how could I be billed $515 for a month of service when I didn’t receive a bill for August, and I was on vacation for half of the month in August. She first told me it was a catch up amount, then how it must of have been a leak, and that I was billed for 300 gallons of water. Then she stated that it was because of the whole bill not being paid in months prior. (Which one was it?) She also stated that there was a bill on the PWSA system, so I must have received it. But I am signed up for e-billing, and I receive an email when the statement is generated. As you can see from the JPEG entitled Statement Listing, that there is no statement for August. She also told me that I would be sent a copy bill along with the payment arrangement. Now I did receive the payment arrangement on 9/25/15, I have yet to see a bill for August.

I would also like to note that during the third week of July one of your technicians was out to my residence to replace the meter. And there were issues with him getting a signal, he had to reset the meter several times for it to work. I would like to bring this up because right after he was there was when I should have received a bill, and there is no usage on my September bill for August, please note the PDF attached entitled September bill.

I have also attached my July statement to show my previous balance, and I have outlined my most recent payment below.

July 10- Statement for a total of $381.98

July 20-21 – Payment made of $230.00 leaving a balance of $151.98

September 9-Received a ten day shut of notice in the amount of $148.95

September 10- Received a bill of $629.53 with a prior balance of $515.50

September 18- Payment made of $150.00

My question is how can there be a difference of $365 for one month’s service? I come to the amount of $365 my subtracting the prior balance of $515 from the $150 that was requested for the 10 day shut off notice. My bill averages $120 per month. I have don’t have any leaks, and I have never received a “catch up” bill in the 8 years of being a PWSA customer. The prior balance alone is 3 times more than more normal bill for a month. There is also the fact that there is no usage recorded for the month of August, which leads me to believe that the bill is not correct. With that being said, something in your billing is not correct for the month of August. I would like to request a hold put on my account until this is resolved. There is clearly a billing issue here and until it is resolved I do not believed that there should be any further action taken on my account. I am more than willing to pay my bill for what I actually used, but a bill over three times the amount of my monthly usage is completely wrong.

I look forward to your resolution in this matter.

Thank you, [redacted]Desired Settlement: For the amount to be withdrawn since I never received a bill or usage amount proving what I used.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

Good Afternoon [redacted]

Review: When calling the PWSA to inquire about a shut off notice for my property located at [redacted], on July 28 2014, I was treated by the customer service with the utmost rudeness. This shut off notice was the result of me not receiving billing for the sewage portion which apparently was discontinued when I paid online The customer service was talking in a diminishing way and even questioning my ability to run my own business. Very rude and argumentative. The wait time is ridiculous because the 1 minute wait time turns into a lot more than 1 minute when you call PWSA.The request to speak with a manager is always pushed back stating that they have no manager available. Three times I called back to request a manager and three times I was told no one is available. They transfer you to a voice mail in which you leave a message for nothing because they don't call back.I can't believe the consumers have no choice but to put up with their very poor and rude service and it seems that there is nothing anyone can do to request a more polite customer service.Sincerely,[redacted]Desired Settlement: I just hope that the Revdex.com does something to influence PWSA so that they can improve their service and prevent customers from going through what I went through.