The appeals board should get prison time for running a scam on the public

@akulkis

6 ай бұрын

Easily fits the definition of racketeering: fraudulent or dishonest business practices.

@yogibro6442

6 ай бұрын

If they sent a fake bill that's mail fraud too

@mrcryptozoic817

6 ай бұрын

Not scam ...Extortion

@westernbody

6 ай бұрын

Unjust enrichment

@workingcountry1776

6 ай бұрын

Politically motivated maybe.....?

One of my friends here in the UK suddenly recieved a bill for water. He called the water authority and pointed out that he doesn't use any of their services. He has a freshwater spring on his own property and uses a septic tank for all his waste. The water authority insisted, if he has a postcode he owes the money. He took it to court and won the case but it cost him for legal fees. The following year exactly the same thing happened. Once again it cost him his legal fees. This time he took out an injunction against the water authority that made it illegal for them to send him any more bills. The following year they once again sent him a bill. He took them to court for breaching the injunction. This time he was awarded all of his legal costs plus £20,000 punitive damages. It hasn't happened again.

@mbeaux5693

6 ай бұрын

I bet they got the message that time!😂

@SoManyRandomRamblings

6 ай бұрын

​@@jerrybrown4658 probably different rules for things like utilities...especially if they get any government funding.

@kimlandefeld3005

6 ай бұрын

That's what it takes to stop the bullies. FIGHTING BACK!!

@LDuncanKelly

6 ай бұрын

@@jerrybrown4658 I believe that's just for civil actions alleging damages - first two were probably just simple appeals and the third would have asked for payment of damages (and possibly a restraining order barring further false billing...)

@hauntedshadowslegacy2826

6 ай бұрын

@@jerrybrown4658It's entirely possible that the judge (or whatever they're called over there) saw that this was a habit of the water authority and decided to make it hurt to teach 'em a lesson. Something being 'normal' doesn't make deviation impossible.

It is not that a mistake is made, but that a municipality doubles down and refuses to do what is right!

@tbirdboy

6 ай бұрын

No use or theft here. Gross incompetence or criminal corruption is probably what's happening here.

@grt49er

6 ай бұрын

The water meter shows that much water flowed through the meter. That is problem. That can’t be faked and it could be a little off,but not that much. Water went through meter.

@DefectoPerfect0

6 ай бұрын

This wasn't a municipality. It was a private utility company who doubled down and refused to do the right thing.

@grt49er

6 ай бұрын

@@DefectoPerfect0 It’s odd he didn’t have it cut off. He is only responsible after meter. If it’s a leak it’s on their end and it wouldn’t have gone threw meter as it sat.

@DefectoPerfect0

6 ай бұрын

@@grt49er anything passed the meter is the responsibility of the home owner, but there was nothing there. All evidence point to the utility company messing up. Either the meter or leak. You're Definitely right, it couldn't be a leak as it physically couldn't leak that fast.

A few years ago, here in the UK, my Grandmother had a bill for land she owned regarding water to the sum of £45,000. She didn't pay and, after a number of letters, it ended up in court. I appeared for her and the legal berk for the water authority asked for a judgement there and then as the "accused" had not attended. I stood and said "Your Honour, may it please the court to take notice that my Grandmother will not pay because she, and I stress this very importantly, has been dead for five years. The water authority were provided with a copy of her death cert some months ago - short of writing it in large letters in the sky, I do not know what to do"... Judge awarded a small some for emotional distress and told them to not appear in his court again

@skillethead15

5 ай бұрын

These people are criminal and just trying to extort money from law abiding citizens for the hell of it. These people should be fired and charged with fraud.

The water department investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong, where else do we see this corrupt practice?

@soliniv1411

6 ай бұрын

It was our problem? Meh lets make him pay anyway whats he gona do about it 😂

@kimlandefeld3005

6 ай бұрын

Everywhere people are in power. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts ABSOLUTELY. Why is this so hard for some to realize? Yes, let's let our government control everything . . . . . .

@shadowknightgladstay4856

6 ай бұрын

Sounds like the police or government.

@kimlandefeld3005

6 ай бұрын

Take your pick. They both 'police' themselves. What could go wrong with that? @@shadowknightgladstay4856

@Splazoinka

6 ай бұрын

Business 101. Bleed the people for as much as you can, lie, cheat, beg, steal, whatever it takes.

Since the watershed management utility employees were fully aware that they were in error, yet overruled their own investigation and charged them anyways, this should be escalated to a criminal case of fraud. Some employees should go to prison for this.

@singlemom6305

6 ай бұрын

Wonder if the MGMT is black. Kinda like a ceiling bird moment

@jackwest3282

6 ай бұрын

you got to remember though that the government gets to decide if you can sue them or not...majority of the time its not allowed. So 70/30 chance of you being told to f-off and they sit back laughing at your frustration.

@ReadTheShrill

6 ай бұрын

The problem would be proving that any of that fraud-derived windfall went into employees' pockets. It's entirely possible, given the moral depravity of the average government bureaucrat. But you'd need to do that to prove criminal fraud.

@grt49er

6 ай бұрын

There is a very strong possibility the owner committed fraud here. The reason they retracted the bill reduction was because of what the owner did that made him look very guilty. The meter showed the water went through.

@29slowjoe

6 ай бұрын

​@@grt49er It's mathematically impossible to steal this much in any conceivable way.

I had a friend who once got a ~$5000 water bill. The city insisted he pay it before appealing it or they would shutoff the water. However, the city engineer stepped in and cancelled it. He said it was physically impossible to push that much water through the pipe. The meter was faulty.

@theosexpertdaymon2774

6 ай бұрын

Mad respect for that engineer's balls of precision milled steel.

@Digital-Dan

6 ай бұрын

​@@theosexpertdaymon2774 Or the non-corrupt govt. he happened to work for.

@DefectoPerfect0

6 ай бұрын

The key difference was in your friends case, he has a public utility. One person could just make a rational decision and cancel that bill. But in the private sector, if you dare to go against any profits, you will be fired. Even if you know it's wrong, it doesn't matter, profits over everything, even people.

@robertlang4292

6 ай бұрын

Once the house was hooked up, the meter ran correctly. Something else was wrong.

@DefectoPerfect0

6 ай бұрын

@@robertlang4292 meter go bad all the time. Sometimes when water creates cavitation or a hammer effect it can move meters without flow. There was enough evidence to show that there was no leak, no one was stealing that amount of water with out anyone noticing and the line being too thin and the pressure to light to come close to the amount of water that was metered.

Sounds like the water board is: 1. Incompetent 2. Scammers Take your pick.

@kitalalaris

6 ай бұрын

Why not both? XD

@andrewhemphill8999

4 ай бұрын

Yes to 1 And Yes to 2 Also no empathy and no ability and no desire to look at anything beyond what is directly in front of them

@sue2611

3 ай бұрын

3. All of the above

@bjornlangoren3002

Ай бұрын

A previous Atlanta watershed commissioner was handed a 4 year prison term for a bribery scheme. So what do you think?

@chrisharkins6929

24 күн бұрын

You can not get $8,000 worth of water through a house meter within a month...you might over a year...but I guess this is how America works

How can they charge him for water he could not have physically used? That sounds suspiciously illegal.

@ianbattles7290

6 ай бұрын

And how often are they doing this and getting away with it, just because the amounts are not large enough to catch someone's attention?

@pepethepatriot7524

6 ай бұрын

This is the norm in liberal-run government

@57WillysCJ

6 ай бұрын

Bureaucracy plain and simple. They are always right until someone above them says no. They won't even listen to others in the department. Their authority and rightness can not be questioned. The DOT in many places is the same.

@AlanTheBeast100

6 ай бұрын

Never attribute to crime that which can be more easily attributed to incompetence.

@grugnotice7746

6 ай бұрын

@@pepethepatriot7524 Which is all governments. Friend of mine had a chicken killing facility in a town in the middle of rural Texas, red an area as you can imagine, and he had some pencilneck come in and estimate his $50K worth of equipment to be worth $5 million, and tried to tax him at 1% of that value. The lesson is to never operate a business in compliance with the law.

The water department should be sued for damages and the heads of the department fired with loss of their pensions. That is the only way they will ever learn. That department has a total disregard for their customers. Shameful.

@TacoTomtheBomb

6 ай бұрын

That is how they fund their pensions.

@Rattlerjake1

6 ай бұрын

@@TacoTomtheBomb - And if he loses his lawsuit and refuses to pay, you can bet that they will put a lien on the property as well as charge interest.

@leroyrussell8766

6 ай бұрын

It shows that you don't have to be smart to work in government. This is clown world stuff. It's like something you would only expect to see in some comedy movie where the man is having a really bad week where nothing goes right, and something absurd like this would be one of those things. The public should demand the pay these people have received, be returned due to the incompetence of these clowns.

My aunt’s property is uses tank water and is not connected to the water system. The water corporation sent her a bill and ignored her explanation that she wasn’t connected. They threatened to cut off her water supply if she didn’t pay so she just ignored them from that point on. Never went any further, I guess they went to cut her off and realised their mistake at that point as she never heard from them again.

@keithnsearle7393

6 ай бұрын

Now that is a very good one. We all hope that they (the water companies that is) do learn from their mistakes, but then again pigs might fly before that happens.

@snowcrustracer

6 ай бұрын

I would have her check to see if they put a Lein on her property.

I think there is a cozy relationship between attorneys and judges. That's why a judge never finds in your favor in an informal meeting. Once you bring an attorney, the judge gets antsy about the state bar giving him a bad review.

@theosexpertdaymon2774

6 ай бұрын

Cozy relation between cops and prosecution too. I wonder just how many of those informal cases are products of police lying through their teeth.

@jacksmith7726

6 ай бұрын

And keeping the attorney in work

@rebareyes6595

5 ай бұрын

So corruption Trump's justice

@tbelding

2 ай бұрын

It's not so much a 'cozy' relationship, it's tribalism. We allow, and in many cases, actively encourage, judges to be lawyers. We should not do that, because that means that they're more likely to be biased towards the legal profession itself, rather than the law. This is normal human behaviour. People that went to the same university, people that cheer for the same athletic team, people of similar race/creed/religion... etc - all tribes.

The members of this kangaroo court need to be named and shamed.

@user-iy6de7qi1r

6 ай бұрын

I'm not into "naming and shaming" I'm into naming, indicting, and then convicting and putting in jail. We can't afford to have criminals running the least little bit of government.

@robertsmith2956

6 ай бұрын

I would be stealing their water while they were holding sham hearings.

@scottmcshannon6821

6 ай бұрын

no they need to be named , charged, and imprisoned.

@charlesslack8090

6 ай бұрын

One kangaroo was named Hippety Hopper, and his excuses bounced around all over the place! Just ask Bugs Bunny!

@disorganizedorg

6 ай бұрын

@@user-iy6de7qi1r No perp walk? Party pooper.

millions of gallons were "stolen" yet the meter shows no water was used. Yeah, that makes total sense.

@LordOOTFD

6 ай бұрын

Sounds like they have a hole in their pipes somewhere, and want to blame someone else.

@Dave-ty2qp

6 ай бұрын

Nope. Just corruption. It is Atlanta after all. @@LordOOTFD

@rupe53

6 ай бұрын

@@LordOOTFD if there was a leak in the pipes BEFORE the meter, the meter reading would not show it.

@jennifertarin4707

6 ай бұрын

​@@LordOOTFDthe meter want connected ans according to the report, there was no water access on the property

@DanEBoyd

6 ай бұрын

@@LordOOTFD They'll wait for the sinkhole to tell them...

Send the people from the court and water company to prison. Clearly corruption.

A friend of mine had an unexplained gas bill turn up, which he let run until they threatened to cut his gas off. He said, come on then. They duly turned up but could not find any gas connection as there wasn't one. He then sucessfully sued them for threatening all sorts of law suits for something he had never been connected to or used. This was in 1990 UK, alas he died in 2010. Then another case was a friend who was threatened by the environmental aggency for not paying towards a flood prevention scheme that they said would prevent his house from flooding due to his living on a flood plain. Flood plain was noted by post codes. He again said, fine, bring it on, but i am not paying. After a fair bit of wrangling and to and froing,the experts came to inspect his property. When they asked where the river was he took them to the bottom of his sloping garden and pointed, saying there it is, over there, about 100 yards away and about 500 foot below. Needless to say they left with very red faces and a mumbled apology.

@benwagner5089

6 ай бұрын

Should have said, "You're the environmental expert, you tell me where the river is."

They couldn't just admit a billing mistake, they had to double down and make it yet another case of bureaucratic avarice and malicious stupidity.

@Bewefau

6 ай бұрын

Its the government its not there money there losing.

@TheCatherineCC

6 ай бұрын

The Fox 5 Atlanta story on this talked about how this was a widespread issue and other cases involved equally obviously impossible excuses.

@jamesphillips2285

6 ай бұрын

Sounds like an error build into the process. They are only allowed to rule that the bill discrepancy is one of 3 things: Use of water, loss of water, theft of water. It is not clear to me how it could have been loss of water with no leak detected. The place would be a mud hole after a while.

@section8usmc53

6 ай бұрын

​@@BewefauWhere and where?

@suedenim9208

6 ай бұрын

@@TheCatherineCCWhat story is that? The only ones I've seen are about this particular dispute. If you're referring to the percentage of appeals that are denied, why is there anything suspicious about that? The only disputes that are appealed are the ones that were already determined not to be erroneous, and I haven't seen any complaints about the initial process being a problem.

A water department in my area made news for insane billing years ago. They reported it as a guy being billed for more water than could flow through a meter. It was more crazy though. His lawyer pointed out they were claiming he used more water than they produced for the whole village. Luckily the judge had common sense, and the water department's fight was quickly mocked and stopped.

@luciaconn6788

6 ай бұрын

municipalities etc. love running up bills

@clementthurn1992

6 ай бұрын

Good. SHAME on them.

@solidmoon8266

6 ай бұрын

I hope the judge also had the sanity to stick the idiotic department with legal fees and lost wages. If someone forces you to go to court to defend yourself from a mistake they made, they should be made to compensate you fully.

@tbelding

2 ай бұрын

@@solidmoon8266 - The problem is that the _department_ shouldn't be stuck with the fees. The attorney and the individuals in question should be charged with the fees. Make it a "You screw up, YOU pay." rather than calling it the entire department's fault.

There needs to be a control laws against these "administrative processes" that have consequences for these rigged process.

@xenn4985

6 ай бұрын

Second amendmant

@rizeagle33

6 ай бұрын

It's called socialism and highly regulated at that.

@Digital-Dan

6 ай бұрын

If the people who brought a recent SCOTUS case get their way, there will. That is, every regulation will have to be enacted as a law, not promulgated by an executive bureaucracy. Sounds great, except that the nation will grind to a halt.

@xenn4985

6 ай бұрын

@@Digital-Dan the nation grinding to a halt sounds like a good thing. The people will be able to breath for once.

@party4lifedude

6 ай бұрын

@@Digital-Dan If the progress of the nation depends on allowing massive corporations to step on individuals with impunity, then it deserves to "grind to a halt" People act like the economy is the most important thing in the world, but it doesn't have any effect on 99% of the people in the world. If the economy is doing well, people suffer. If the economy is doing bad, people suffer. It doesn't make a single difference.

Reminds of a Green Acres episode where Oliver is having electricity installed to the farm house. The guy from the power company shows up with the meter under his arm. Oliver asks why is it running?

There was a case here in Toronto like this. A small restaurant was located on a hill at the entrance to a transit station. The city discovered a leak on the other side of the intersection 400m away they then "Traced" the leak to the area under the restaurant and proceeded to dig the entire area up including the entrance to the restaurant and the entrance to the transit station. 5-6 months later, he presented the restaurant owner with a bill for the entire repair costing 500,000 dollars or so. and claimed that the owner should have been aware that the water service had a leak that had undermined the entire intersection and surrounding area over the last 30 years that the business had been in operation. The owner of the restaurant declared bankruptcy, closed the restaurant, and levelled the building so it could not be repurposed before abandoning the site leaving all the material on site in a filled-in hole on the site where the water service was supposed to have been. This left the city with a cleanup of the site for over 1 million dollars! The owner returned to his native country and could not be held liable for the cost of the cleanup!

@RUHappyATM

6 ай бұрын

That will show the city! LMAO.

@NineFourOneMedia

6 ай бұрын

Something like this is how they ended up with a guy and his killdozer.

@RiversJ

6 ай бұрын

All fun and games for the morally corrupt until someone's really had enough of the blatant legalized criminality and starts applying justice instead of asking for it. Easily solved problem but people are too averse to voicing uncomfortable truth even when it's blindingly obvious.

@PWingert1966

6 ай бұрын

@@NineFourOneMedia I love that movie! I always root for the 'Dozer!

@rikubrown8109

6 ай бұрын

​@@PWingert1966😂😂😂you know that really happened?

And here we have the perfect example of "How to get our department sued by making stupid decisions and ignoring the obvious" We should make a reality show. 😹

I rented a warehouse in Madison Wisconsin back in 2007, just before winter the warehouse furnace completely died. I had no heat in there at all. After 2 months I got a bill for over $300 saying the meter must be faulty and they estimated by usage. I told them the meter is correct and I am not using gas. They basically told me to take a hike.

@JohnSmith-yv6eq

6 ай бұрын

So did you have to pay on this "estimated usage"? without them having to prove the meter was running correctly..or not?

@party4lifedude

6 ай бұрын

Every time I make an effort to conserve water or use less water, the water company just decides to arbitrarily add like 400 dollars to the bill just for shits and giggles. It's almost cheaper to just waste water to avoid these spiteful bills that punish you for trying to save money.

@jasony8480

6 ай бұрын

That's interesting. I actually know a few people (well, quite a number are not living at the moment) that worked in the gas department at MG&E during that time and it doesn't really sound like them to go with an estimate when the owner is telling them there is no leak (warehouse go boom) and no usage. They would have sent a tech out to quickly verify (they really do hate being woken up when things explode due to funny business around non-functional furnaces). It does sound like the bean counters, so you have my condolences.

@kitalalaris

6 ай бұрын

@@party4lifedude Same happens with our electricity. We put in solar panels because it gave a tax deductible. Now the electric company has doubled the electricity bill for the area.

Time for a class action.....With a 80% loss rate, I bet there are a whole bunch of bad decision by the board. A 100 million dollar class action is what they deserve!!!!

Just saw video from a local news station on this story. They showed a picture of a decent sized swimming pool and said someone would have to fill the equivalent of 10 swimming pools every weekend. Neighbors confirmed no trucks were repeatedly filling up on the weekends. There is theft going on, but it isnt by the construction company.

@carynvanwyk

6 ай бұрын

I saw that same video yesterday and now today Steve is doing a video on it.

The board literally proposed that someone stole that water from his meter. Hundred of swimming pools worth of water was supposedly stolen where no one noticed the trucks it would have taken. This board is a pawn of the utility, designed to protect it from its customers.

@PSUQDPICHQIEIWC

6 ай бұрын

That's the ridiculousness of it all. It's not like someone can sneak in the middle of the night and steal that much water. The damn tap isn't even big enough to deliver it in a plausible timeframe. Nobody stole that much water. If that much water leaked into the soil, the whole lot would be soup. Wanna bet they installed a used meter without recording its initial count or otherwise fucked it up? No. That's too simple. It must be something absurd instead.

@MarcosElMalo2

6 ай бұрын

The real crime here is your misuse of an apostrophe S.

@PSUQDPICHQIEIWC

6 ай бұрын

@@MarcosElMalo2 Wow, your write! I totally mist that.

@Ryarios

6 ай бұрын

@@MarcosElMalo2 dammit…

@76rjackson

6 ай бұрын

​@@PSUQDPICHQIEIWCtoe tally, 😂

Hire a lawyer and sue the agency in court.

How about the option of a "BROKEN" water meter? It also seems the management or the water department is also broken!!

I saw this story and was curious what it would take to steal 305,000 gallons of water. A large tanker trailer can hold between 6000 and 8000 gallons. You would need between 38 and 51 of tankers to steal that first month's worth of water.

@Wild1BillS

6 ай бұрын

I thought the Exact same thing. Funny how None ever saw the tanker trucks that Never were.

@FourthRoot

6 ай бұрын

Where did you get the 305,000 gallon figure. I don't recall that number. I know water prices are typically $1-$10 per 1000 gallons. So, it would have been millions of gallons.

@tmmcnmra

6 ай бұрын

​@@FourthRoot 3:25

@vailpcs4040

6 ай бұрын

@@FourthRoot Steve says it towards the beginning.

@rosameryrojas-delcerro1059

6 ай бұрын

I saw an article that it would be 10 swimming pools per day.

I’m sure the utility’s employees who caused this mistake are shaking in their boots. Every culpable person raised their hand and said “Sorry! My fault!”- right?

@mrcryptozoic817

6 ай бұрын

HA HA HAR (gasp, wheeze) HAR HAR!

@robertsmith2956

6 ай бұрын

This is why I go to my water board meetings. I am always the only one there. We have a libertarian on the board, and he drives the big gooberment nuts crazy. Wanting to read reports, not wanting to borrow money, and live within the budget.

@Strideo1

6 ай бұрын

It's Tayzonday! 👍

@bobbycrosby9765

6 ай бұрын

People make mistakes. The problem is the unwillingness to own up to it and fix it.

@Eduardo_Espinoza

6 ай бұрын

chocolate rain situation

They need to contact the state AG and start a criminal investigation into the board and it's members.

I live in NYS. I got a ticket in Troy (they said that a no parking sign extended down past a curb cut because the curb cut had a flower pot in it which made it no longer a curb cut). Not only did they have one of those administrative meetings, but it was mandatory. NYS has got a lot of scrutiny for practices like that. The goal is to make it taking two days of work off instead of just one to fight the ticket not worth the expense. I no longer go to Troy for anything. I was only there to do some antiquing. What was even more frustrating was the curb cut issue was right in front of city hall so the prosecutor knew damn well that the planter argument was B.S. It was a moveable planter, the sort you see used to block off a street for parades and such.

They neglected the fourth option, fraud by the utility.

@jamescaron6465

6 ай бұрын

That’s the first option

@jimnorthland2903

6 ай бұрын

Also dysfunctional equipment or computer error.

I hope the law suit includes reimbursement for the attorney fees. That is insane.

@ltsgarage7898

6 ай бұрын

That’s one of the problems. A lot of the time they don’t cover the attorney fees or for that matter any of the fees it cost to make it right. They just don’t care if you are correct. 😮

@robertsmith2956

6 ай бұрын

I'm guessing they also put a lien on the new house, so even selling it will be a problem.

@farticlesofconflatulation

6 ай бұрын

He can probably file a separate civil lawsuit for damages and loss of income from the sale of his newly built house. Lets hope!

@MonkeyJedi99

6 ай бұрын

Sometimes I wonder how people stay civilized and DON'T apply hammers to foreheads.

@MonkeyJedi99

6 ай бұрын

@@robertsmith2956 And even if the lien is canceled as a consequence of the court decision, it will somehow accidentally stay on the property in the records of the registrar of deeds, and pop up to surprise you decades later when you try to sell or pass the property to your inheritors via your will.

Let me tell ya what happened to us whereas our water bill never exceeded 35- 55 per month for over 30 years (only small increases due to inflation). . Then, the new smart meters were changed then our water bill tripled. We got a 5 gallon bucket and filled it with water (making sure all water inside home was off). The meter indicated 15 gallons to fill a 5 gallon bucket (exactly 3 times as actually used). Later found out it had something to do with the installation. If I remember correclty, something about size of the pipe and a small part attached to the meter. I am not sure how they repaired it BUT it happened to many people in our neighborhood and other areas.The city had failed proper installation and did repair them asap as complaints arrived. So try the 5 gallon bucket test to prevent being blamed for water usage. Sadly since our new smart electric meters installed our electric bill increased 30 per month yet Entergy states, its due to your old meter was not correctly metering your usage before. Kind of like the Entergy credits we received and our bill increased again 20 per month so they got their credit back in 4 months...great ROI plus some ..huh? Small increases here and there add up but guess they hope these gradual increases won't be noticed? Whateva!

I suspect the billing software is assuming that if it sees a difference that's too low, it means the meter value rolled over. For instance, the prior reading is 000002 and the current reading is 000002, that means that 1000000 gallons of water was used.

I have never ever in my life heard of or had a water company that didnt seem like it was run by a cartoon villain sitting in his oversized chair counting money with a cigar.

@MOORE4U2

6 ай бұрын

Ideally, you never have to hear about the more mundane ones

@richiebricker

6 ай бұрын

exactly

If people are required to appeal to the same administrators whose paychecks depend on a certain outcome, that's a problem

@hjf3022

6 ай бұрын

Are they getting performance bonuses for denying appeals?

I wouldn't be surprised if no water went anywhere and it was just a billing error of some kind, and instead of adjusting it, they see $$$ and want to grab it just because they think they can. I had a hospital try to do this to me once when they screwed up billing and somehow 'forgot' my insurance information and claimed I never gave it to them. After multiple attempts to get them to correct (and their story changing from 'you never gave us insurance' to 'you gave us wrong insurance', yada yada) they finally got a call from my insurance provider and were told in no uncertain terms that they either file a claim with them, or they get $0 from both them and me for being in network and failing to file the claim in timely manner. I got a bill that was 1/100th of the original bill a few days later. There are people that just want to take you for a ride if they think can and have no problem with stealing whatever they can from you, and they never get punished for it. It's criminal with a capital C.

@johnm.3279

6 ай бұрын

No water did go anywhere. There was no water service, only a meter.

@sammyhoy7838

6 ай бұрын

They will be punished,we just need to pray for them and all of us.

Glad you saw the mail Steve, and thanks as always. Regards, Scott (in Japan)

I think their appeal process needs to be investigated! If anyone looked at his issue, it would be obvious that he has a strong case. It really sounds like they are getting paid to do nothing. Also, that faulty water meter would also be something worth investigating; why would the water meter ever move if no water flowed through it? How many existing customers saw their bills go up without the water actually being used?

@JamesAllmond

6 ай бұрын

it's worse than that. The folks over that board identified a problem. It was a leak, caused by the same water board's folks, while the meter was not even connected! The board found someone equally as feckless to appeal it to and it was and the contractor is going to have to sue to get this straight. This board will not accept that their folks screwed up, even after the folks over them has proven them wrong. Can you imagine 1,000,000 gallons of water, and the golf course across the street hasn't seen it? Meaning, this is total BS. Welcome to Atlanta, glad I live 100 miles south.

@michaellowe3665

6 ай бұрын

If you buy a 40 year old car with all 00s on the odometer, you assume it has 100k miles on it or more. That may be what is going on here. The billing mechanism won't register zero usage. I'm sure the billing software was written by whoever bribed the water department management.

@lukejohnston5566

6 ай бұрын

Sounds like a fraudulent measurement device. Heads must roll!

@robertsmith2956

6 ай бұрын

yep, I had my 40 year old meter replaced by a smart meter, and was told beware your bill is going up, old meters don't work properly. when it didn't go up, I got ANOTHER smart meter with same warning. It ALSO never raised my bill. I keep asking for the interface so I can have my home computer read the meter and watch for a leak in real time. If my house says NOPE not running water, and the meter goes thirsty bugger aren't' you. Why should I have to wait a month and a huge bill to get notified of a leak?

@apparition13

6 ай бұрын

Agreed. It leads me to wonder if something is wrong in the facts of the case. If the meter isn't connected to water, it can't move. If it's connected to a water line that doesn't have an outlet on the property, that's a different set of facts. Okay, I just watched part of the Fox 5 Atlanta report and the reporter says the meter wasn't connected to the house, which makes me think it was connected to a main. So water could be going through it, but if it isn't connected to a faucet or outlet how would it be flowing? And how could 1,000,000 gallons leak? If it's an active construction site, You'd think they would notice the ground was a bit wet if that much was leaking. The water company says there wasn't a leak, and the ground wasn't a swamp while they were building, so that implies no leak. If there's no leak, and no faucet, is the valve to connect to the house later exposed or buried? If it's exposed, theft would be possible, but you'd think someone would notice a water tanker sitting in the street for a few hours overnight. Unless there is a CYA situation happening with the water company. In which case the reporting and I'm sure coming lawsuit will make things worse than simply saying "our bad, blah blah blah technical issue" would have been.

I got a traffic ticket for doing 30mph in a 25mph zone at 5:30 in morning on Fort Meade, a military base. When I saw the MP car, I immediately looked at my speedometer and I was doing 25. The MP pointed at the sign which was a distance away. It said 25mph and he said I was doing 30. I asked to see the radar readout and he told me that he didn't have to show me. Later I looked at the sign more closely and it said 25mph when children are present. At that time, early in the morning, there was absolutely no one around except me and the MPs. I went to court and talked to the prosecutor (a captain) and showed her the picture of the sign. I also told that I wasn't doing 30 and they wouldn't show me the radar reading. She got cross and said: "Are you accusing my MPs of lying." "Of course not." (They were). After I showed her the picture, she asked the judge to drop the charges. I went to the clerk to tell her that the charge was dropped and I didn't have to pay. She looked at me incredulously and said: "No one has ever had the charges dropped before." A MP friend of mine told me that they had been told that the ticket count was low that month.

@yeevita

6 ай бұрын

I am stupid because I would have said yes, they were lying. Why? Because I am dumb and because no matter what anyone's feelings are, facts are facts.

@brownro214

6 ай бұрын

I got a ticket on McGuire AFB in New Jersey for driving across the lines in the parking lot (the parking lot was only 20-25% full at the time). Talked to the prosecutor (also a captain). She said that the charge was ridiculous but she had to support the Air Police. Since I lived in Atlanta I asked for a change of venue to the US magistrate in Atlanta. She dropped the charge.

@sterlingspots

6 ай бұрын

And because of dishonest police doing things like this is why I have a dash camera. It has a gps module to calculate and record the speed the vehicle was going at that time along with video recordings of where you were driving. After you get the ticket, without arguing with the cop, you take the memory card into court and play the recording. End of discussion.

@TheRealScooterGuy

6 ай бұрын

​@@yeevita-- The correct answer is that they were mistaken. Accusing someone of a lie implies intent, which you cannot prove. Accusing someone of making a mistake does not imply intent, and you need only show the mistake. Easier on you in court. (After you win, or lose, feel free to tell anyone who will listen that the cop lied.)

@jpjohnbo

6 ай бұрын

Had a Rhein Main Air Base SP ticket me for going 1Km (.62 mph) over the speed limit. My Commander laughed and threw the ticket in the trash.

These are the same bureaucrats that wants to run your Healthcare,😮😮

The board should be dismissed fired no pension no retirement.

When the county, or city you live in is a circus and run by clowns this is what happens. Politicians, even on a city or county level, are corrupt to the core.

@kevbu4

6 ай бұрын

Corrupt people are drawn to positions of power like moths to a flame. While good people would rather just live a quiet life and let someone else take care of things. This is the number one problem with virtually every government that has ever existed. No matter how leaders are chosen, it is the corrupt that will fight most fiercely for those seats of power.

@frankney8284

6 ай бұрын

Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

I had an argument with the Power company over a bill. They said I owed for 4200 kilowatts, and I said 2400. It took many calls, with them still saying the amount was correct. I finally called the PSC, and they got me in touch with someone in the power company that had sufficient skill in performing arithmetic. They saw the billing error was caused by the first two numbers getting transposed. I wasn't arguing what the meter said, I was arguing over their arithmetic skills. I won. Case closed.

@MonkeyJedi99

6 ай бұрын

Fun thing I learned from someone who used to work at a bank. Digit transposition errors can often be confirmed by subtracting the right total from the wrong total and finding the difference is evenly divisible by three.

@heroslippy6666

6 ай бұрын

@@MonkeyJedi99 Pretty cool trick!

@firstlast---

Ай бұрын

​@@MonkeyJedi99that's a neat trick

There was a company under construction in our town... They set up an account with the water dept for future set up but not connected yet (so they had a profile at the water dept yet no hook up yet). They were Billed a large amount of money. The company visited the water dept and the billing clerk actually shared their billing reports with the company at the visit. The billing report showed the SAME account number as the grocery store next door and found out they were being billed for grocery store water usage. The water dept corrected the error....

I had an experience where the city replaced my water line and water meter at their expense. A month later, I got a $9,999.99 bill. We had a several-year history of meter readings and paying about $25 per month. When I appealed the bill the city denied the appeal. I pointed out that it is not possible for that amount of water to go through my pipe in a month and showed them the engineering calculations. I finally got them to come out and inspect the installation to see if there was a leak. The inspector found that the meter was installed backward and had gone from 00000.0 to 99990.0, making the bill very high. After about two months the bill was corrected.

@bjornlangoren3002

Ай бұрын

Should let them have it backwards after having your first bill cancelled. They would be owing you more money the more water you ran.

Traffic courts are an extortion racket. They get paid either way, by bonds, fees, or attorneys who used to work for traffic court. I had a ticket that has the wrong name, tag, and GENDER (amongst other false inputs, 7 in total). Judge still ruled that since the cop pulled me over, I was guilty. My argument that he couldn't even get my identity accurate (so how could his speed estimate be accurate?) was ignored. An appeal would have cost more!

@noosphericaltarzan

6 ай бұрын

When I was 18 I got a ticket for driving on a suspended license. They never told me until I got pulled over, and I found out the reason was that the state of Florida decided I had no insurance (I did). I went to the court date with proof of my insurance and had the ticket dismissed. Was then ordered to pay "court costs" of $50. Three years later, I was in the USAF, stationed in Idaho. I had the same car and plate from Florida, but a Progressive insurance policy for Idaho. One night, SP pulls me over on base and tells me I had suspended license. I call Florida DMV and they say they suspended my license for having no insurance. I explained that I did. I showed them proof. They said I still had to pay somewhere around $200 just to get it reinstated because they said I needed insurance in both states. I paid that because I was in the military and on the other side of the country. However, Progressive caught wind of it when I asked them how I can get insurance in two states, and one of their lawyers made Florida DMV send me a check for what they charged me. The whole thing is a racket and government employees almost seem happy to upset innocent people's lives.

@LuckyCharms777

6 ай бұрын

Always choose a jury trial if it’s offered for traffic court in your city/county.

@brandonbrown3563

6 ай бұрын

If the tag and name were incorrect why would you even show up?

@roberteltze4850

6 ай бұрын

@@noosphericaltarzan You still had to pay court costs? That seems wrong. I can only speak for Kansas but here you pay no court costs if you win your case. The flip side is that court costs are far more than $50 and they collect that on every ticket that doesn't get successfully challenged. I have also seen prosecutors offer a fine of $0 if the person pleads guilty/no contest. That still leaves them on the hook for court costs.

@LuckyCharms777

6 ай бұрын

@@brandonbrown3563 Good point. Should’ve just ignored it instead of trying to resolve it legally.

What fundamentally wrong here is that when some company think you owe them some money, it is you, who now has obligations to start administrative process or a lawsuit and prove, that you dont. Everythiing else is just a consequence of this fundamental flaw, and the majority of this mess could be eliminated by reverting the burden of proof on those, who claim.

As a person that lives in Atlanta, this upsets and scares me. Also thanks for taking a looking because while this was in our local news, I was hoping someone would give more input.

Steve something like this happened to us - the water meter on our house was very sensitive and any big vibration or thud would make it 'jump' -we were adding a room and using a sledge hammer to knock things into plumb (in our case just 20 whacks of a sledge hammer on the side of our building was enough to make the meter jump ahead a hundred thousand of gallons) - so things like 'thumpers' for compacting soil or dropping large loads of materials on the ground could of easily been enough to cause the meter to 'jump' ahead.

What this case tells us is that the people who staff the water authority bureau don’t give a fig about doing their job. It sounds like the one staffer that did do an in-depth investigation and determined the cause of the problem was simply overridden by higher authority. Shame on them.

I helped a friend with a case like this many years ago in CA. He received a bill for water that was $190,000 for three months usage at his home. The water service was a 1/2" meter providing 45PSI service. The hydraulic calculations give this a maximum potential 50 GPM flow. At the time, the water cost was straight gallon usage with no pro rata surcharge for excessive use. After he had lost his initial argument and first appeal I got involved. I calculated that the total gallons indicated as consumed by the meter must have been in error as the flow rate indicated for the 90 days between the readings was about 234 GPM or 4.86 times the physical capability of the delivery system. This is also about what 2 1/2" firehose flows. This assumed that the high flow rate started the same day as the prior meter reading and continued until the current meter reading. There was no indication of any leak, as one would expect with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water flowing somewhere. At the Admin board one member asked me what my credentials were to make the assessment. I responded that I graduated high school outside of CA and actually learned math. He won that appeal, but the one vote against was from the board member that asked me about my credentials. Screw the CA communists.

@rjay7019

6 ай бұрын

There's a man in Abilene Texas who is dealing with this situation now. They've checked for leaks can't find anything. The city installed new water meters last year. I wondered if he got a faulty one.

@Mixer-he2wb

6 ай бұрын

Going on in Houston right now. Its currently so widespread city council had to get involved.

@clynesnowtail1257

6 ай бұрын

Credentialism pisses me off. Oh you didnt pay 60k to go to school to be an engineer? Well, whatever it is you have to say must be wrong, uninformed, or both.

@Mackinz92

6 ай бұрын

Hi, from California here. If they are charging you money, then they are capitalist, not communist. Red baiting is so 1960s.

@mfarmer7944

6 ай бұрын

@@Mackinz92 you don't understand communism

Very good information. I'm not living in Atlanta. Not even vist!

@ Steve Lehto: Out here in the West, our meters are down by the curb, in an in-ground box. There is no hose bib to turn on. There is just the meter. There is a threaded connection on the upstream side of the meter, and another on the downstream side (1/2", 3/4", 1", whatever). A thief would have to come prepared with plumbing hardware of the correct size, and then remove it each time they left. Not a likely scenario. The average 3/4" pipe (residential is normally 1/2" unless a bigger is requested), can only flow about 10 GPM (gallons per minute). It would take hours to fill a normal water truck (they normally fill those at a Fire Hydrant - Much bigger hose connection) The neighbors would notice the water truck's repeated visits to refill. The only way a meter can record the usage, is if it passes through the meter. Leaks on the upstream side would not be recorded. If the Water Department left the valve cracked.... where is the accompanying swamp ?! No pipe on the downstream side ?! the only place for the water to go.... is on the ground. Where's the swamp ?! No connected pipe leading to another property ?! The Theft possibility is not plausible. Somebody recorded the starting milage/gallonage incorrectly..... Forgot a zero or put the decimal point in the wrong place.

This makes me think of the UK Post Office scandal, where innocent people were accused (and some convicted) of theft when there was absolutely no evidence of their guilt.

@keithbalding7258

6 ай бұрын

There was "evidence". It was provided by a faulty computer system and a corrupt organisation that were aware that the system was faulty.

@MartintheTinman

6 ай бұрын

Government is the enemy of the people

@Scimu

6 ай бұрын

And the UK post office served as prosecutor

@shmeli

6 ай бұрын

That was horrible, ruined some of those postal workers lives, there was 900 of them!

@ralphhorne9743

6 ай бұрын

And got the law changed in their favour!@@Scimu

While searching this I discovered it has occurred previously 4 years ago to the tune of $100,000+ when a homeowner tried to sell his house. Atlanta is broken

@robertsmith2956

6 ай бұрын

I wonder what they would do if you decided to save money and pay to have the house moved instead. LOL

FWIW, all the water meters in our neighborhood are located at the end of the driveways, right next to the sidewalk. In a concrete hole.

Great stories. I have one. My water bill was usually $100/month or less. One month it was $600. For a very large amount, much more than we would ever use. Then I found the leak in my drip system, in the back corner of the yard. Was my face red.

They seem to need the money for the multiple levels administration and appeals board payroll.

This is completely absurd, but I completely understand how it can happen based on the one lawsuit I was involved in. The legal system is highly corrupt and utterly stacked against ordinary people. My case was decades ago and any trust I had in the US legal system was completely destroyed then.

@thadrepairsitall1278

6 ай бұрын

Your experiences appear to be common based upon others' stories I've heard.

@markthebuilder9837

6 ай бұрын

When I was younger I thought justice would prevail in legal proceedings, but was mistaken. Mine was an arbitration case on a new house where I learned that if the attorneys have the right connections strange rulings will occur.

@TheCatherineCC

6 ай бұрын

The sooner Americans understand that the legal system is completely broken and should be bypassed using more direct and effective means, the better off everyone will be.

Steve, just to say it, a lot of properties (including mine) have the meter in a buried box out by the curb, so when they put in the meter it's attached directly to the main, but with nothing on the house side. When the water is installed to the house, there'll be a long buried pipe from the meter out to the actual foundation hookup, wherever that ends up being. The meter box has a lid you can lift up to read the meter, or a lot of 'em these days have a little transmitter so they can just drive a truck down the street and pull readings off all the meters as they go past.

It happens all the time here in Birmingham Alabama even contacting the Attorney General, still they seem to have to get away with scamming customers over and over….

Sounds like a mafia shakedown.

@TheOrangeRoad

6 ай бұрын

It's the legal version

I once gathered enough photographic evidence and documentation to fight a ticket in Michigan that the officer was forced to admit on the stand under oath that they had in fact Not witnessed me commit the offense the ticket was written for, and the judge still ruled against me and upheld the charge.

@joshuahudson2170

6 ай бұрын

Belongs in the newspaper.

@osco4311

6 ай бұрын

Both the judge and the offer are city employees. They get their check from the same guy. It's a joke.

@1978garfield

6 ай бұрын

My ex sister in law was driving 55 on a road marked 55. She passed a small country school at 11 pm at night and a sign that said Speed Limit 35 on school days when children are present. Small town cop pulled her over and hit her with a speeding in a school zone ticket. She contacted the super intendent of that school, got a signed statement that there were no activities taking place at that day and time, and that no children were present. She went to traffic court, presented the statement from the super intendent. The judge responded "The cop said you did it so you did it." So she then owed the original fine and now court costs. As others have said the judge and the cops both benefit from ticket revenue. The man was kind of a crank and a no good dirty commie but he did have a good pint with this quote: "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" Upton Sinclair

@Cdaragorn

6 ай бұрын

This is the problem with state judges. Most of them don't even understand the law enough to know what should be done and fewer still care. Sadly you'd have to spend the time and money to appeal to a federal judge to have any real hope of getting a sensible ruling.

@Digital-Dan

6 ай бұрын

@@osco4311 Probably not the rule, but annoying at best when it happens to you.

Another great video, Steve. Would be interesting if the plaintiff played this video in court.

I just had a new gas line ran from the street. It's not connected. The meter is locked until I ask for service to be turned on. It's the same way for water. It's locked until.

I am a single woman with a small house. I got a huge bill from the City of Atlanta Watershed for 90 dollars, but every month my bills run between 10- to 13 dollars per month. I know I didn tuse any extra water becasue my water usage is very low. The Atlanta Watershed uses extortion tactics to get more money to pay for employees health care benefits.

@robertsmith2956

6 ай бұрын

That is why you NEVER sign up for autopay. they want their money they have to come get it.

@MonkeyJedi99

6 ай бұрын

@@robertsmith2956 And if you doubt your water bill is correct, compare the actual number on the meter to the number they say they got from the wireless drive-by reading. Sometimes, utilities will penny pinch and just estimate customer use rates.

@bjornlangoren3002

Ай бұрын

It is very easy for a toilet flusher to get stuck, which will make the gallons fly by. Just watering of a few outdoor plants can cost $50 extra a month. Not saying you're wrong, but $90 is not a ton of water, and it does not take many hours for any kind of leak to reach that. Have to keep the ears to the ground and react to any rushing sound from the water pipes to catch a leak early. I adjust the valve on the toilet tank, so that the tank fills slow, in case of a leak. And if I hear any kind of whistle in water pipes I chase it down like a dog on a mission.

On the traffic ticket example : Once I showed up to my assigned court appearance to fight a BS ticket, representing myself, only to find my name nowhere on the docket. I asked the clerk and was pulled into a side room by a member of the prosecutors office and told that I wasn't on the docket because they 'didn't know I was representing myself', ignoring the fact I had a court date document in my hand. He said my options were a) have a lawyer there within the hour or b) go back into the clerks office and pay the ticket immediately. If I did not, my license would be suspended for 'failure to pay or appear' since they "had no formal paper trail that would prove I was there". IE: something else I would a lawyer to fight. Effectively black mailed to pay it on the spot - I was a broke ass college kid, and paying it was cheaper than fighting it at that point. Part of me hopes I get some BS ticket again... because I am going to have a lot of fun fighting it for real ifever it happens.

In Indianapolis In you get billed a connect fee minimum and a minimum sewer bill for the water you do not use.

My sister had an issue years ago, but it didn't get near as expensive. They went from a normal $50-75 water bill, to one month it coming in at over $900. They lived in a tract home that backed on to a park. Unknown to them, on the other side of the back fence, a bad sprinkler valve was allowing the system to slowly run around the clock and it was flooding a small portion of the large park.

I often wonder what the motives are behind those mass sh*oting tragedies at businesses that we occasionally hear about on the news. When I hear stories like this, I understand why.

@GARDENER42

6 ай бұрын

Killdozer...

The watershed is fraudulently billing it's customer to line their own pockets. Or somebody in the office is blatantly stealing from the watershed's customers.

@richiebricker

6 ай бұрын

Yep, they just have to keep the loss moving around as debt

The meter has numbers to read the gallons used. If the numbers have not moved since the recorded installation numbers case close.

There usually is a valve behind the meter, that prevents backflow. If that is not installed, a meter is likely to go up by the pressure changes on the pipe. After connecting it, a valve has most like been installed and fixed the issue.

At some point the water company claimed my mother was using the same amount of water to fill a Olympic sized pole 3Xs a month for three months. When she complained, they came out and said the meter was working correctly and claimed that we MUST have a leak. I came into town and couldn't find any leaks and with that amount of water we should be able to find a large sinkhole or a river of water. Had a plumbing come out and do a leak test and none was found. As a last ditch effort, i adked them to install a water meter between the city's meter and the house and we ended up proving THEIR meter was defective. Of course they tried to make her pay for the water she didn't use but the bad meter claimed we had used. I just hired an attorney and less than a month later the bill was corrected, but I still had to attorney bill and the plumber bill, but that was a fraction of the water bills To this day, when I come to her house, I compare their water meter to hers and have found at least twice where they tried to over charge her, but got it corrected. If the city over charges even 1/2 of its customers a few $s a month, they get a lot of free money. Now if I could do the same for the electric bills

@christopherwhite1648

6 ай бұрын

Many municipalities run their public utility departments like corrupt and criminally influenced racketeering organizations. They have self-important, self-entitled and self-righteous bureaucrats that are often incompetent and never held to account, just like most city, county, state and federal bureaucracies.

Utilities are Imperial. It is their nature. All utilities. And they can afford lobbyists to keep the authorities in line.Expensive to take them on. They have time and money on their side.

That informal hearing thing you describe sounds like the one and only ticket I've ever received... Pulled out onto a road in the middle of the school zone where there was a sign saying 35 mph in the middle of the school zone... But when I got to the end of it I got stopped and told that it was 25 because it was a school zone and the signs at the ends of the school zone were flashing 25 even though the sign in the middle saying 35 did not have any schools zone signage. After a fair bit of politely asking questions and pointing things out the judge finally said "well you should have known anyway" and upheld it. Among other things when I got a few hundred feet to the end of it the sign had stopped flashing when I could see it looking behind me and the cop said it stopped flashing while I was getting to the end of it, and I inquired (as we stood in front of the judge) what the hours for the school zone we're supposed to be followed by asking and why the ticket said that the offense time was outside of those hours and the cop then claimed the offense time was when he prints the ticket not when he stopped me and that it takes like 40 minutes for him to prepare a ticket so it would have been the middle of the school zone time not the end. Basically everything that I pointed out that didn't make sense the cop had some excuse and the judge every time went with what they said over the observations of discrepancies I pointed out. "Yeah we agree with what you're pointing out but he said so no".

Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things.

@Tolbat

6 ай бұрын

I think we passed the time to do anything, but you are not wrong.

@-in-the-meantime...

6 ай бұрын

They're still unreasonable. Your words not mine.

@TheOrangeRoad

6 ай бұрын

​@@-in-the-meantime...They aren't his words either. They belong to the legend, Marvin Heemeyer

@matthewhowe3727

6 ай бұрын

Colorado man got fed up with city hall and reinforced a bulldozer with steel plates and ran it through the town. It got stuck on rubble, he couldn't go any further and took his own life.

A significant issue that wasn't mentioned in Steve's video (but was covered by FOX 5) is that the builder had sold the house, but the property cannot be transferred while this $30K is hanging over the property. The new owners can't move in and have had to temporarily move in with relatives.

@robertsmith2956

6 ай бұрын

I knew a lien was going to be there someplace. Loved the guy the IRS was harassing in murderham. They towed his truck, he towed the agents car. They put a lien on his business, he put a lien on the agents house. The owners should put a $30K lien on all the water board, and appeals board members homes.

@jessicaanderson7885

6 ай бұрын

This might have been a deliberate attempt to steal the property by putting a lien on it.

@spaceracer23

6 ай бұрын

I hope the builder and owners get all legal fees paid AND are paid damages for the company's clearly malicious actions.

Most of the times I've dealt with people who run these government township institutions have big heads. They seem to enjoy telling you no, they dont help, they just tell you where you're wrong.They act as if they are bothered by you even being in their office. A water meter with no line on the other side, how ridiculously can you get. Then they say it could have been stolen, so what, now their detective's. Their idiots.

@willscher819

24 күн бұрын

They are NOT Their

The meter if it’s pre-development pre-building permit installed is by necessity at the property line.

Until there is a penalty (to all entities, including governments) for such things, there is no incentive to get thing right. When money is involved, there is plenty incentive to er on the side of generating revenue. But, if there was a penalty such that it would really decentivize such activities, the problem would go way down, if not vanish.

@joehannah1343

6 ай бұрын

It needs to be on the PEOPLE (within the government) who pay, or it ends up being the citizens represented by government actually paying.

@StuartBpPce

6 ай бұрын

​@@joehannah1343 Yes so true! I hear stories all the time that the city did this or the county did that but it was actual individual people that did these things not some nebulous entity.

The board said there were three options when there were, in fact, four. 1) Use of Water 2) Loss of Water 3) Theft of Water 4) Adminstrative Error (with subcategories of equipment error, malfeasance, etc.) It's why the adjustment procedure is supposed to exist is that fourth bullet. And if he tries all the admin procedures to reconcile the bill to satisfaction and it doesn't happen, well then he should be authorized to sue. It'll all come out in discovery as to what the admin process was, the bills, the emails, etc.

@johnm.3279

6 ай бұрын

Considering there was never any water on the property to begin with (no water connection), #4 is the only possibility.

@freethebirds3578

6 ай бұрын

I think there was theft of water by the administration.

@suedenim9208

6 ай бұрын

@@johnm.3279 Considering that there was an installed meter before there was a foundation the only sensible conclusion is that the meter was hooked to the municipal supply and completely capable of delivering water. Considering that the mechanical meter showed consistent usage of large quantities until it was protected by being hooked up to an enclosed structure and then started reporting likely usage amounts suggest that the readings for the previous billing cycles weren't due to faulty equipment. Unless a guy who has been building houses for 20 years doesn't know how to read a water meter a sensible person might wonder why he hasn't aid anything if the readings reported on the bill are inaccurate. That might lead sensible people to conclude that the claimed amount of water passing through the meter is a likely explanation for the claimed readings.

@GARDENER42

6 ай бұрын

@@suedenim9208 Pure drivel. You clearly have no idea how a faulty water meter can produce this exact situation. I do.

@TheRealScooterGuy

6 ай бұрын

​@@GARDENER42 -- Faulty meter, or faulty readings. If read incorrectly before installation, anything could happen. If the meter wasn't new, or hadn't been reset to zero, he should inquire about the final reading from the prior customer who used it.

I’m in a very similar situation. The meter malfunctioned and was registering thousands of gallons of flow even with the valve closed. Got video of it. So far the utility has not adjusted my bill.

In our town, if you have electricity they still charge a fee of $25.00 for 'water' and $25.00 for sewage. We have a well and septic tank. When I questioned them on this they said if you have electricity you then have water and sewage and you have to pay for it. So I told them we were rebuilding and needed the power to be cut off. I then installed a used solar array and never called them to put the power back on. Havent paid a bill since then.

I love how you can have department mistake and yet the department says it's anything but their fault.

All I could think of, while listening to this absurdity, was, "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Saint Louis City is identical to this. One of the reasons everybody is leaving.

Reminds me of my first Internet MIFI “Hot Spot”, which I purchased to connect my laptop to the Internet, at a rural building site that lacked normal internet service. It was a little black box about the size of a cell phone that had a digital screen, but no keyboard. It was assigned a phone number (like a cell phone) so it could connect to my carrier’s towers and network. The First bill arrives and in among the charges is a fee for Texting. I call and explain to the carrier’s customer service rep that the device has no keyboard and is incapable of texting. They have the model info right in front of them, but can’t resolve the issue because “their billing system” is set up to charge the fee as a default. It takes months and multiple calls to resolve. Sound familiar?

I know this odd, but the same thing happened to me only with phone and internet and a lower bill. We were having a house built and the phone service was not installed yet and there was no high speed internet because it was a rural area, yet they charged me anyway! I had to fight the phone company to get the bill fixed. Also, I paid for my phone number to be unpublished and they published it! ALWAYS double check your bills because these companies can be shady!

@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket

6 ай бұрын

I work in IT and you have no idea how bout it is.

@manitoba-op4jx

6 ай бұрын

can be? they almost always ARE.

@lasskinn474

6 ай бұрын

you know those pictures from asia that have 100 lines on the same poles? it looks stupid and silly, right? but you know what for telecoms and shit, if you want change your service you can have different service in 5 days using completely different network running on completely different fiber or copper - doesn't seem so silly then(electricity over here where I live is a government monopoly though, but it's pretty cheap).

@davidturk6170

6 ай бұрын

Sounds like AT&T. That’s SOP for them.

@jeremyjohnson8128

6 ай бұрын

Years ago I had the same thing happened. AT&T kept not showing up for the scheduled appointments to install the physical DSL line to the house. This one on for weeks, and I eventually got a bill for the Internet service even though no line was still hooked up! After many calls I eventually talked to someone helpful, who sorted it all out for me but wow!

This also happens with property tax appeals. I had a co worker appeal a giant tax increase on his home. He submit the appeal and he got a video conference. It basically went "case number 12345, appeal for tax increase aye or nay..."nay"....appeal denied. Video feed was cut. He said the whole process was under 30 seconds.

The water meter readings could be a result of compressed air running through the meter. A significant amount of air in an empty pipe, and a very very small leak downstream of the meter, could be at the meter outlet itself, can cause the meter impeller to spin rapidly, showing the passage of a lot of water when only that compressed air passed by.

I had a water meter replaced shortly after I bought this house due to low water flow. I read the new meter myself the same day it was installed. A week later I read it again and it had run a fraction of a unit backwards. So I called and reported that and they scheduled another meter test and replacement. Apparently they didn't clear the work order and it was replaced a third time. One of the second or third times the reading wasn't recorded properly, causing the next reading to look like I had used over 80k gallons in less than two weeks. But I was able to appeal due to the meter serial numbers not matching their records and everything worked out OK.

This is how killdozers get built

@kitsunekaze93

6 ай бұрын

and reasonably so

@matthewhowe3727

6 ай бұрын

A Colorado man built one and used it.

@spudpud-T67

6 ай бұрын

When you have nothing left you have nothing to lose.

@JCR6573

6 ай бұрын

@matthewhowe3727 that's kinda where the name killdozer comes from my man

My friend lives outside country lines, he is on well water. Apparently the city sent him a letter explaining that he must show proof of viable clean water to continue to be without city water or must have city water installed or face fines. He had water tested and it had high levels of acid or something, which then the city said he must have their water source. Cost him over 8k to have it installed, the city helped none. He thinks the city contaminated the water table, because he's not the only one with the letter in the area.

@crockpot5194

6 ай бұрын

Have your friend conduct another test through a whole different company and than if found that it's true that they did what they did he/she can sue them for tampering the test

@jasony8480

6 ай бұрын

It is also possible the city already had done/received tests, other work done or from the city's own wells, and noted probably watershed contamination. Allowing those people to continue to drink contaminated water without treatment (or acid erosion causing leaching) would be rather bad. Not saying you or your friend are incorrect and some action of society contaminated the watershed (in fact I can guarantee that some person or some negligence or some greed action allowed it to happen), just that the people demanding he hook up could be the more responsible parties fulfilling a mandate to protect people and not the ones which allowed a landfill in the wrong spot or some other allowance resulting in contamination. He arguably could have looked into treating his water or proving the acid levels were not a risk to him (would require research and expertise...probably more expensive than just hooking up but you never know until explored). Personally I find the idea of "Pay for the hookup" or "Pay the fine until you pay for the hookup" is pretty tone deaf. Isn't drinking supposedly dangerous water punishment enough? Having a mandated educational class with an expert for an evening and then signing a waver of understanding health risks for continued use of well water to protect the city would be more realistic (we let people kill themselves slowly with poisons all the time!). THAT would be appropriate to level fines if people refuse to attend to be informed + sign waver and refuse the hookup.

Traffic court in Los Angeles also works this way. Whatever the officer says is what the judge follows, 100% of the time. The only way you get out of it is if they are a no-show.

I had a $23000 water bill. The reading had transposed digits. So the reading had rolled over the number like when your odometer rolls over back to zero. They fixed it in days.

Similar issue my wife and I had. We replaced our service line with a new one and a new meter….the next bill was approx 4,000% higher than the last. After 6 months and countless hours fighting it we got them to allow us to install a new meter and presto….no more insanely high bills from a broken meter.

@suedenim9208

6 ай бұрын

The thing that would make your issue similar would be if your meter readings had changed because you replaced a sink or toilet rather than the meter. For some reason, this guy's meter seems to have started producing readings much smaller readings once it was hooked up to an enclosed house.

@amergrant-ns5cr

6 ай бұрын

Same thing happened to me, it was a software issue. Fortunately I am in a small town and the mayor fixed my problem.