Utility Submetering Systems

I do not accept the companes responseHad someone looked at the charges for a townhome, not even family homes use gallons of water per monthWhy are you charging for equipment you removed? Why are you removing my lock when you were the ones who told me to put the lock on the meter? Why does the amount fluctuate per month when there was no one using the services? Why is my meter different from my neighbor's? Why are we no longer billed every other month and now my bill is $OR MORE A MONTHMY BILLING STATEMENT HAS NEVER REFLECTED MY PAYMENTS and depending on who I talk with I continually getting disconnection notices , late fees when the bill is clearly being paidThe first $was made in July, while we stayed at a hotel room because we had no electricity because of a bee infestation on my electricity box, that your company refused to take care of until I paid a bee keeper myself! No one from your company has ever come out and viewed my meter or tried to correct the problem if water is being over usedThe water hose that is used by anyone on the property is not attached to my home nor should I have those charges attached to my billsToo many discrepancies and random charges to pass off as normal!This response says nothing about the HOA charges, the reserve fees attached to my property, the termite problem, which is now structural damage or the bee's that I had to have removed.No response has been made concerning whether this HOA has the legal right to charge us for water usage one price and pay the city of Glendale another.No response has been made concerning the degradation of our property because of non work ethics of HOA, but I have to pay a month for work not renderedI'm paying more each month than my friends in Ahwautukee, Queencreek and Tempe for the same type of condo/townhomesWhich when compared are much better taken care of than mine.Nothing has been said as to where the payments are being used, no monthly statements or meetings.No security for break ins, no lights in the car port area at night and no clean places for our children to play!As a Consumer who feels defrauded, I would like the Revdex.com to look over the bills, the charges, my meter, my neighbors meters and charges and the legitimacy of this company, before they make a decision

Let us address issues stated below: *Continued over charging for water usage. Water usage billing is based on a City water billing for the Bethany Park Place HOAEach home owner is billed based on their individual water usageBilling includes: water use, base fee, sewer fee, equipment
rental and billing fee, and the State and City taxesEach home owner pays a percentage of each fee billed to HOA. *After making an agreement in person with coand quoted a price to have my water service restored, the cocontinued to send disconnection notices, billing over the amount due. Attached is a file with detailed billing and payment historyWe also included communication with the home owner during that time*** *** was made aware that monthly water billing will continue, as specified in the agreement with the HOA. These are samples of communication and agreement made with*** ***:8/4/2016: rcvd call from Sallie and she was questioning when her water would be turned back on/ she came to the office to pay 250.00/ advised her the tech will be out there between 4-tonight to turn her water back on/Amy 8/4/*** will do payment arrangements today, 08/29/2016, + water bill every month until paid upUnderstands if payment is late late fee is applied Also has a name change to *** *** -Laura08/29/2016, + water bill every month until paid upUnderstands if payment is late late fee is applied Also has a name change to *** *** -Laura *My service was cut off in and the meter was removedCompany continued to bill me and attach late fees, after continued arguments over the phone, I stoppedWhen I returned home and asked for service restoration I was then told I would have to pay $up front! It is our company policy to collect 50% of past due balance before re-establishing serviceWe turned the water back on same day Sallie paid only $250.00. *There was no usage for years but my bill was over $After agreeing to pay the $800, July, August and a month until it was paid off, and an additional $for the monthly statementThat should not be billed every month. We deducted equipment rental fee from *** *** balanceCredit of $was issued on 7/28/16. There is no mention of $monthly statement anywhere in notesDon’t know where this came fromMaking payment agreements does not stop future billing, as specified in the contract with the HOA:” USS will prepare and mail the individual water and sewer bills to each HomeownerWhether a property is occupied by a Homeowner or tenant, the Homeowner is ultimately responsible for the payment of the city water/sewer utility bill.USS will read individual water meters; compute the utility bills per city billing procedures, and mail individual statements to each Homeowner with a self-addressed envelope to return payment to USS”USS will send out late notices to delinquent accounts, if payment has not been received in full within seventeen (17) days of billing date.” Remaining part of the complaint is directed to the HOA. Our company has been very companionate and helpfulIt is our job to bill customers for water and collect money owed to the HOAThis complaint has no basis. If there is anything else we can do, please do not hesitate to contact me directly

Let us address the issues below: * Had someone looked at the charges for a townhome, not even family homes use gallons of water per monthMunicipalities estimate water consumption per individual at gallons per month*Why are you charging for equipment you removed? Per our contract with the HOA, we charge for equipment that is rented for each individual accountWe did deduct equipment rental fees totaling $for this account *Why are you removing my lock when you were the ones who told me to put the lock on the meter? We have notes on the account dated 9/18/that we attempted to collect on the delinquent account without resolutionThere was a non-company lock on the meter that was cut and we removed our meter to prevent the possibility of water theft, as per our contract *Why does the amount fluctuate per month when there was no one using the services? As per our contract with the HOA, we bill for our services as well as for our meter rentalSewage is billed based on the community from the city bill then is formulated individually based on individual consumptionThere is a minimum and maximum charge for sewage stipulated by the HOA regardless of consumption *Why is my meter different from my neighbor's? As improvements in technology becomes available and the need for maintenance and repair becomes necessary, meters are replaced which perform the same function as outdated equipment *Why are we no longer billed every other month? We bill per guidelines and timelines dictated by the HOA* MY BILLING STATEMENT HAS NEVER REFLECTED MY PAYMENTS and depending on who I talk with I continually getting disconnection notices, late fees when the bill is clearly being paidThe first $was made in July, while we stayed at a hotel room because we had no electricity because of a bee infestation on my electricity box, that your company refused to take care of until I paid a bee keeper myself! There was no payment received or posted to this account between the dates of 8/8/and 7/28/ The remaining complaints are not applicable to our company and should be directed to the HOA Regards, Glen M*** Operations Manager Utility Submetering Systems, LLC
***

Dear Ms. [redacted], I am glad we were able to finally speak on the phone this morning. As we discussed, there is no late fee on your account. Either it was removed or never posted.I appreciate your understanding that we have just come through a difficult situation. While our IT company was...

upgrading our network to provide more protection against cyber attacks, they found a cyber attack set to go off in the near future. They had to eradicate this from every file in our network and then complete the upgrades. This put us back by 3 weeks. We lost about 5 weeks of data that had to manually entered so all accounts are correct. Now we are billing again, although we are still playing catch up. I believe we will be back on schedule by the end of next week. As I mentioned, you will be receiving a bill next week. This cyber attack also affected our website. We are in the process of changing our domain. The website is still secure but until we have the new domain, the site is not always available. Again, thank you for your patience. There is nothing we want more than to satisfy our customers with accurate and timely billing.Sincerely,Lorie M[redacted]Operations ManagerUtility Submetering Systems

I received your complaint through the Revdex.com and want to respond to your complaint.  

First, I want to say that our customers always come first and we aim to provide excellent service to all of our customers. I am sorry to hear you have had a negative experience with...

our customer service representatives or believe we are not correctly billing you according to Glendale water rates and fees.

We are not associated with [redacted] in any way except through [redacted] acquiring our services to install water meters on each home and bill each resident for their individual water use according to the [redacted] Water Department water/sewer rates and City and State taxes.

I have researched the billing history of your water account and found notes regarding a possible leak in your home in the billing period from August 5 to October 4, 2013. 

We did receive a check in the amount of $249.53 on October 30, 2013 that was returned non-sufficient funds. Our accounting clerk made an error when posting the charge and the NSF fee back on your account. It was posted twice to your account by accident.

Upon your visit to our office in early January, we found our error and immediately corrected it by crediting your account $274.53. A Statement was mailed to you January 10th showing the credit and new balance.

If you feel the consumption is high, we recommend testing the toilet for a leak. Simply place a drop or two of food coloring in the tank of the toilet, wait thirty minutes, if the water in the bowl turns color, the flapper mechanism in the tank needs replaced.  

An overnight read can also let you know how much water is going through the meter when you are sleeping. Before you retire at night, write the read on a piece of paper, in the morning write the read again. If the numbers have changed, water has gone through the meter. Call our office and we will calculate how many gallons have gone through overnight. This may indicate a small leak in one of the pipes. 

The last water statement reflected 15,900 gallons for the two month billing cycle. This amount is consistent with the consumption history on your account.

Please call if you have any further questions.

Sincerely,[redacted]

Operations Manage

Water Submetering Systems, LLC

So I just spent another 45 minutes on the phone with the 2nd rep today about the constant billing error that has been going on. Supposedly I used 20, 500 gallons of water - when I typically use 4400- 4600 gallons a month. (I have lived in this house for 4 years)!! The first thing that comes out of this extremely rude female mouth is that I have a toilet leak. "No Ma'am there is no toilet leak, no dishwasher, no washer, and no pool - so why would my bill jump from $45.62 to $234.68! When she ran out of BS to tell me - she told me she could not speak to me anymore, because she has given me all of the options(basically to pay a bill that I am not responsible for). Although I stayed calm - she continued to cut me off, talk over me, get loud, was extremely unprofessional and when I asked to speak to her supervisor to tell her how rude she was - she stated, "I will tell her myself - how rude I was to you". I can not believe companies are hiring and retaining employees with such nasty manners and dispositions. When I asked her, her name - she then Hung up in my face. After calling back Chris realized it was an adding problem after 30 minutes on the phone and emailing me a list of my payments/charges (the same as last time). Did I get an Apology? Absolutely Not...... this place is beyond horrible, and I am assuming everyone there is family because they sure do not give a rat's [redacted] about their customer or any type of professional customer service.

**I guess if you Hate your Job, you should go get another one![redacted]

Warning: HOA board members, this may seem like a good idea if the association is low on funds BUT this will take a tremendous amount of money out of your community for NO benefit.

The sales pitch to cash strapped HOA members is that the high water users in the community are being subsidized by the low water user and by submetering, those costs get attributed more fairly. This allows the HOA to split off the water bills from the HOA fees and, like magic, the HOA has more funds without raising fees.

The reality is that Water Submetering Systems (WSS) has fees they charge for every meter, they charge fees for reading the meters, they keep any of the late charge fees (instead of the HOA), and there are NO water savings. The average water bill is approx $36, with over $12 of that going to WSS.

Don't use this company or these horrible people who take advantage of Home Owner Associations who are strapped for cash. They pit neighbor vs neighbor, claim water savings that never materialize, and remove a LOT of money from the community.

Short backstory... Most communities don't think about participating in their HOA because it's time consuming and a pain in the butt. So after a while the HOA board gets filled by the lowest common denominator. After the economic downturn we had some empty units and our HOA funds started to shrink. That's when WSS came to the "rescue". We got tied to a multiyear contract, had to pay to bring an old but working water system up to new code, vote out the well-intentioned but bad at math board members, hire a lawyer, pay to remove the hardware...

For the love of god, do not use this company.

Review: see Attached documentDesired Settlement: see Attached document

Business

Response:

I received your complaint through the Revdex.com and want to respond to your complaint.

First, I want to say that our customers always come first and we aim to provide excellent service to all of our customers. I am sorry to hear you have had a negative experience with our customer service representatives or believe we are not correctly billing you according to Glendale water rates and fees.

We are not associated with [redacted] in any way except through [redacted] acquiring our services to install water meters on each home and bill each resident for their individual water use according to the [redacted] Water Department water/sewer rates and City and State taxes.

I have researched the billing history of your water account and found notes regarding a possible leak in your home in the billing period from August 5 to October 4, 2013.

We did receive a check in the amount of $249.53 on October 30, 2013 that was returned non-sufficient funds. Our accounting clerk made an error when posting the charge and the NSF fee back on your account. It was posted twice to your account by accident.

Upon your visit to our office in early January, we found our error and immediately corrected it by crediting your account $274.53. A Statement was mailed to you January 10th showing the credit and new balance.

If you feel the consumption is high, we recommend testing the toilet for a leak. Simply place a drop or two of food coloring in the tank of the toilet, wait thirty minutes, if the water in the bowl turns color, the flapper mechanism in the tank needs replaced.

An overnight read can also let you know how much water is going through the meter when you are sleeping. Before you retire at night, write the read on a piece of paper, in the morning write the read again. If the numbers have changed, water has gone through the meter. Call our office and we will calculate how many gallons have gone through overnight. This may indicate a small leak in one of the pipes.

The last water statement reflected 15,900 gallons for the two month billing cycle. This amount is consistent with the consumption history on your account.

Please call if you have any further questions.

Sincerely,

Operations Manage

Water Submetering Systems, LLC

these people say I have been late and add extra charges,the bill is mailed more then 6 days and they conveniently say one day late. never have I been late paying my water bill till this company took over our hoa. my credit report verifies the only response I get is go to auto billing and by the way we charge a premium for that. they are liars and crooks. maurice will not even send back the envelope I asked for twice with postal date. the post office master insist 4 days to deliver max. they say 8 days .my bill paying history speaks for itself.'