For the last few months we've been getting reports of people calling the water department and saying that they couldn't get through to anyone.  At first I didn't think much of it - - I've had plenty of experiences calling customer service and waiting ages for someone to pick up.  But our members were reporting something different.  They weren't concerned about long wait times.  They literally did not have the option to talk to a customer service representative.

So in July I tried calling the water department a few times.  I recieved a message to expect long wait times, but I was put on hold and I was able to talk to someone eventually.  Strange.  What were our members talking about?

I contacted the City of San Diego to see if they had been experiencing an usually high call volume.  Yes, they told me, they were getting flooded with calls about the new billing system.  This seemed reasonable enough to me.  After all, they did change everyone's account numbers, updated their online bill payment, and overhauled the bill font.  I suppose people might call about that.

I gave the City the benefit of the doubt and thought nothing of it.  Until about a month ago, when reports began to trickle in again of customers calling the water department and not being able to reach a representative.  

What's going on?  So I called the water department, expecting to hear the typical hold schpeal.  I got something completely different.

I got hung up on!  Yes, after calling the customer service line, I heard a charming automated message that told me that the water department could not handle my call, that I could email, and then, CLICK, I was listening to a dead line.

The water department denies they have an issue.  Ask them and they'll tell you there are plenty of reps available.  Really?  Because on September 29, we called four different times from 10am to 3:15pm and each time the line played a recorded message and went dead.  The few times we have been able to get through on other days, we've been experiencing wait times that are 20 minutes on average.

So what can you do?  Call your City Councilperson!  They are your best advocate when it comes to the water department.  Want to help out with our experiment?  Email us your water hotline horror stories.  Tell us the date and time that you called, and the wait time (or lack thereof) that you experienced.