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San Diego City Water Department is blaming Channel 10 News for its ridiculous water bills
UCAN News
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The City is sending out past due Some of these victims have bills as high as $20,000 You can view the Channel 10 expose' here, or |
Background:
Imagine getting a 20-year old water bill for $20,000 due to a billing error by the City of San Diego Water Department.
It sounds utterly ridiculous, but that's what's happening now, and there is no law to prevent them from shutting off your water if you are unable to pay.
For months UCAN's Fraud Squad has been invesitigating charges that the City of San San Diego has been unfairly back-billing consumers for its own billing mistakes ... mistakes that in some cases have been going on for more than 20-years! CPUC, the California Public Utility Commission limits the time a utility can back-bill a customer to three years, but the City Water Department isn't regulated by CPUC and back-bill all the way back to the Jurassic
In one case unearthed by UCAN, a homeowner is being charged $16,000. In another, the victim is being charged almost $20,000 for a decades-old bill. In fact, UCAN has compiled a massive file of enormous past-due bills. The City says it has the right to bill you back to the Jurassic Age, if necessary. Its Web site has this policy: "Backbilling. One hundred percent of the water used will be billed, no matter how far back the water usage occurred." What the policy doesn't say, however, is that the City will bill you even if the bill is the result of their own mistake.
Expect UCAN to fight this policy.
What Channel 10 didn't have time to say in last night's broadcast ....
Back in 1999, Channel 10 published an award-winning story proving that many large developers were getting free or low-cost water from the City.
The value of the water give-away was estimated to be in the millions, with many developers getting free water to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars at ratepayer expense. This probably wouldn't have been a big problem if the deals had not been conducted under the table, but the idea of subsidizing wealthy cash-rich developers at ratepayer expense outraged almost every voter in the City of San Diego.
Unintended consequences ...
Because of the overwhelming public outcry, the Mayor and the San Diego City Council voted on a new "backbilling" policy on July 18, 2000 to prevent billing abuses in the future. What they should have voted on was an ordinance that said "Thou shalt not give away free water to rich developers," but instead, they voted to force the City Water Department to bill consumers retroactively without a time limit -- even when the billing errors are the fault of the City.
This policy is unfair. And the suggestion that KGTV News caused the problem in the first place is disingenuous and absurd. Unfortunately, blaming others is standard operating procedure for the City of San Diego. When UCAN's Executive DIrector sued the City for overbilling consumers a few years ago, it blamed higher rates on UCAN. The truth of course, was that ratepayers like you got a refund.
Related links:
Water: Water and Sewer Rates -
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Water Shutoff.
My water has been shutoff since the 17 of November 2009. I fell behind because I am currently unemployed. I explained this to them in person at their main office and also via e-mail but they still shut it off. Luckly, I was smart and stored up water in arrowhead 5 gallon bottles, I had 8 of these bottles. However, what about people who don't have any water stored up? I have been noticing the same type of extorting behaviour from the San Diego Water Department. Worse yet the programs that would help you pay your water bill have ended for the year atleast. Also, this seems to be a trend with utility companies everywhere.
is this a scam?!
I've always been a very gd customer and I pay every water bill on time via th iPay system with no problem. And suddenly I received this notice of returned payments saying that some of the payments were returned (i did notice that the payment for my latest bill did not go through thus I tried again, it wasn't until the Nth time did it finally go through). Guess what? The water department's charging me the $25 returned-payment fee for NNN times because they said they were equivalent to "returned checks"! I've been using this perfectly fine and I have no idea why this time the payments did not get through?
They threaten to shut off the service and make my account "CASH_ONLY" unless I go to one of those payment agencies (I couldn't believe there's not even one payment centers in Clairemont or Mira Mesa....etc!) and pay $25xN PLUS hundredS dollars of deposit!
After reading all these I really feel being scammed! Do I need to call and report the payment once I pay in cash??
San Diego Water Dept.
I own 2 apt. buildings in San Diego. I changed management co and suddenly the water dept. is demanding huge deposits of $8000 plus the montly service bill. I don't have that kind of money to put up. Can they really shut off the water even if I though the management co has been paying the bills, and furthermore I have had the buildings for 2 years already but since I don't live in San Diego I have to pay these deposits now.........??? Advise needed............
Water Dept.
So I was with a friend who was late on a bill and went along for the ride to pay it and one of those ghetto stations. My friend called in to the water dept. and confirmed the amount necessary to pay. Once paid, he called in to report his payment and no problem, the water was back on. Two weeks later a shut off and my friend was told that the money paid was a "deposit". Horse crap. I heard the call on speaker but this is how they operate.
Water Dept. Deposit Scam
The deposit scam noted by CLM seems to be only part of new efforts to extort money from unwitting citizens. I've heard of water service shut-offs in the last several weeks without any notice whatsoever. After service is restored, the City's overpaid employees exercize their God complexes by threatening to shutoff service again unless the customer pays a "deposit" equal to many months service. Let me know (by Reply) if your service was shutoff without ever receiving a bill or shutoff notice, and a new, sizeable deposit was demanded afterwards.
Water Back Billing
Contact me before you discuss a back bill with the Water Department. I might be able to help.
where are all the money hungry lawyers
best reason to sue ( not pay ) is that they can claim they based their water use on the cost, if they were aware of the actual cost, they would not have used as much water.
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