Back at it again

Hello all! I have not been around in some time with my medical situation and I am sorry about that. I have mostly dealt with all my legitimate debts and so have not been actively fighting any CAs and have not really been actively fixing my credit. Well a new situation arose and since I am arming up to do battle, I thought I would share it with the community here.

Back just before all my troubles started I got a water service. Things went fine for a while then when the troubles started I got behind on the bill. When I realized that I would not be able to keep up, I called and cancelled the service. They gave me a date they would be by to pick up the cooler and the water bottles. Well, that day came and I had the items outside on my porch. No one showed, nor did the show the next day. I called and they informed me the driver was very busy but would be by the next day early in the morning. So, I once again put the bottles and the cooler outside.

Of course, the dang cooler was stolen. Figures. The driver did show up and I told him about it. He told me don’t worry about it that he would make a note of it. Well, I decided to just make sure so I called and reported the theft. I waited for a final bill and I got a regular bill, with the cooler rental on it. I called and again told them about the theft of the cooler and the fact I had canceled the service. I requested a final bill so I could begin to get it paid off. They said it would come around the next billing cycle. Well, sure enough I got yet another regular bill with the cooler rental. So again I call and they apologize and tell me it will all be fixed.

This was right around when I was having the difficulties with the landlord and getting evicted. I don’t remember if I told you guys about that, but it was a partial victory and a partial loss, the judge ordered the eviction, but he did not order us to pay the landlord since we had paid him already (though it was cash and the landlord ‘forgot’ to give us a receipt. Anyhow, I called the water company and informed them of the move and new address since they had yet to send me a final bill.

So a couple months go by and I admit I forgot about the water bill since they never sent anything. But then once more they send a regular bill that was forwarded from our old address, and guess what? You guessed it…the cooler rental was on it! What incompetence. So again I call, rather annoyed that I have told them and told them about the cooler. I asked them if I needed to do anything extra, would they like me to get a notarized letter stating the theft, or what? I was told that no, that was not needed and it was a glitch in the computers. They would correct the problem and I would be issued a final bill. Again a few months go by, I call and get told various things. But since I wasn’t getting a bill, I figured at least they got that part fixed and just waited for them to send me a final bill, I figured they would want their money!

Well low and behold…I get a damn regular bill again! This time it has my correct addy on it. By now I am pissed because they had kept on charging me for all those months, and by now it was almost a YEAR since it all started! I called and spoke to someone once more and told her this was getting ridiculous, that the cooler was stolen. I told her to just charge me for the cost of the cooler, since by now the cost of the cooler was less then the stupid continual billing! She told me that the account was still active (this flabbergasted me) but that she would cancel the account. She then told me that in order for them to fix the billing and get all those erroneous charges removed, it would require a supervisor. She took careful notes (or so I thought) into her computer about the situation and told me that it would be handled by a supervisor and if there was any problem, that they would call me, otherwise I will get a corrected bill with the correct amount including the cost of the cooler. I ask if I can speak to a supervisor, but was informed that a supervisor would have to call me back and I should give them a chance to review the account. So I made sure they had my correct phone number and hung up.

Wouldn’t you know it….another bill. Enough is enough. I call and this time I am told that there is NO record of my EVER calling them! So this time I record the call and I get her name and extension number because this is simply ridiculous. She told me that my account was still active because I still had the cooler, there was no note of it being stolen, no note of my canceling the account. I asked her when was the last time they received a payment from me, and she gave me a date that is a bout a year old. I ask her if everything is fine, then why has my account not been closed and sent to collections, were they in the habit of allowing customers to go for over a year without paying. She had no answer for that. I told her all about the very last conversation and the fact that I was told a supervisor needed to handle the account, but again she argued with me that no such conversation ever took place. After a bit more back and forth she then told me that a supervisor would have to handle the situation and that they would do so and call me back if there was any problem. Talk about dej vu. I reminded her that I told her that was what I was told before.

Well they finally close the account. I get a letter from their collection agency. But apparently they fixed nothing. They took the amount they had been billing all this time (the year’s worth of cooler rental) and tacked on the cost of the cooler and an extra 200 bucks! I called the collection agency and told them of the situation and that I was going to be sending a dispute letter, that I was tired of dealing with the company and their extremely shoddy and incompetent customer service. I found out that the extra 200 bucks was an early termination fee as stated in the contract. Well hmm, this was news to me since I never signed any contract! I was recording this call as well and asked them if they were the exclusive collector for the company. They are. I asked them when do they get delinquent accounts in general. They told me about 3-4 months. So I asked them to look in their files and tell me when I last made payment. The last record they have is of one of those bills about 6-7 months ago and even then there was no indication that any recent payments had been made. I asked them when did they get the account and the date was like a week ago. I told them I found it odd that they are only NOW getting the account when the bill is so very old? Of course they had nothing to say about that.

So the War is on. I did some research on the water company and I found out something very interesting. The company owns various water companies under different names. The main corporate office is accredited by the BBB and they had no rating. It says that there is no rating because a different BBB handles those complaints. Hmm. There was no links to the other BBBs and the ones I could find had good ratings. However, the others ones had horrible ratings, were not accredited by the BBB and that the number one complaint was customer service. Big surprise there. Now I know for a fact all these little companies are owned by the same person because the name of the owner on ALL of them is the same! Looks to me like they are playing the BBB to give them the appearance of a good company. I made copies off ALL the BBB reports, the good and the bad and even highlighted the name of the owner of all the businesses.

I am going to send a certified letter to the headquarter business for the whole and see where that goes. THEN I intend to file complaints with the BBB on the accredited entity and force an arbitration since accredited members have to abide by them. I will NOT allow them to shuffle the complaint to ‘another’ BBB.

I will be keeping meticulous records of all correspondence and if it comes down to me suing the company (and the collection agency if they don’t behave) I will have a wealth of info…especially all that BBB bull, it looks very bad, like they intentionally use the BBB to hide their activities.

Oh, on a side note….I got a call just yesterday. It was from the water company. The guy told me that he wanted to schedule a time to come pick up the COOLER!!!!! OMG. I couldn’t believe it. I told him about the situation and he responded with, “Are you going to give it up or not? If not, I am going to report that you have stolen the cooler.” Well that was the last straw. I blasted that guy. But it just shows how truly horrible the customer service and their whole system is. The bill, the true bill, is not for that much…I had every intention of paying it. The thing is such a snag now that I have no idea what the correct amount is, just a rough estimate.

But like I said, it is beyond me simply paying them. They will be lucky if they get out of this with payment. I will pay what I owe, but I am thinking that I will not have to if they continue to act as they have been and their CA acts up, because I will fully sue the both of them into oblivion.

I will keep notes of the situation here, so you all can see what is going on and how to finally works out.