What is wrong with my water bill?

[Kashmir]

Grrrrr....Somehow my water bill is all screwed up.  First off, when I moved from BA, Tulsa kept "not receiving" my deposit transfer letter, so that was the first problem.  Now I pay through Bank of America billpay and somehow it's like the city forgot to credit a month or something because now my previously perfect account carries a balance every month.  Everything is OK on the bank side.  It's like whatever I pay gets credited way late even though I pay ASAP.  Like they haven't processed it until after they send out the new one.

Have you ever called up to the water dept?  [!]  They don't have a clue!

I tried to go online to their site to see what the deal was but the registration won't let me create a password.  

To add insult to injury, the bill is 2x what it was when I lived in BA. Oh well.  

Any ideas?  Sorry to gripe, I just hate bill problems!

[cannon_fodder]

/had my water turned off once, felt like a delinquent.  They turned off the water on the wrong house.  They said sorry and that they would send someone out between 3 and 6pm.  When they told me that I just went out and turned it on.  So they turned it off and left a notice that said I was not authorized to turn the water on, so I had to call and wait for the guy the next day.

I hate bureaucracy.  

My suggestion would be to take a check down to the water department some day and pay it.  Perhaps that will get things back to normal by eliminating any chance it crosses in the mail or fails to process before the system sends another one out.

[Kashmir]

Thanks cannon. After a frustrating 30 min of creating passwords it finally took one but the bill history tells me nothing.
That story you told was just horrible.  How stupid can they be?
[xx(]

[RecycleMichael]

Water makes you stupid. Loof at surfers.

(my apologies to waterboy)

[cannon_fodder]

quote:Originally posted by RecycleMichael

Water makes you stupid. Loof at surfers.

Typos make you stupid.  So there!

Sorry.  5pm, Friday, nice day, I'll be at a work for a while.  The only way I can cheer myself up is to bring others down.  []

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

/had my water turned off once, felt like a delinquent.  They turned off the water on the wrong house.  They said sorry and that they would send someone out between 3 and 6pm.  When they told me that I just went out and turned it on.  So they turned it off and left a notice that said I was not authorized to turn the water on, so I had to call and wait for the guy the next day.

Hah, when I was on rural water back in Arkansas we called to get it turned on and they said "ok, go turn it on. The meter is in your neighbor's back yard behind the pool."

After talking to the neighbor, we ended up searching around the yard for 20 minutes before we found the meter.

They do have a good system for making sure nobody turns on the water without authorization though. Without their directions we'd never have found it, given that it was hard to find even with the clue.

[Miss Solemnis]

At least they have employees.  When we lived just outside Branson recently it was a nightmare trying to get water service established.  (Actually, just living in Branson was a nightmare, but that's another story.)  The office is located in a shack sitting just off 265, with a hand-painted sign saying "Stone County Water & Sewer" nailed to a tree.  And good luck trying to find anyone there.  They're open Tuesdays from 9am to 11am.  Usually.

I'm wondering what's wrong with my gas bill.  Downstairs heat is at 68, upstairs heat is turned off.  Gas bill was still $324.  Yikes.

[shadows]

There seems to be too much confusion in the Tulsa water billing for many citizens.   What one gets is a fee and assessment bill.  Water is the lesser part of the bill which is collected at the minimum of one dollar for the first glass of water that you need to take the daily pills with.

If  you figure using a glass of beer each morning to take your pills with it would  be a cheaper route.  Course if you had to take six or seven pills, each with liquid, by the time you had them all down, you would not care what the water billing was for.  lol      

[Wilbur]

Don't know that this is happening to you, but the city of Tulsa does not accept electronic transfer when paying your water bill (come on Tulsa, get with the 90s!), so your bank can only send them a paper check if you are using a bill paying service.  If you are waiting until close to the due date to pay through BoA, it may be getting there late.  Pay a couple weeks early to ensure it gets processed, mailed, received and credited prior to the due date.

[Hawkins]

Just don't drink that Tulsa water.

There's something in there (G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate?) that makes people drive slow.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

Don't know that this is happening to you, but the city of Tulsa does not accept electronic transfer when paying your water bill (come on Tulsa, get with the 90s!), so your bank can only send them a paper check if you are using a bill paying service.  If you are waiting until close to the due date to pay through BoA, it may be getting there late.  Pay a couple weeks early to ensure it gets processed, mailed, received and credited prior to the due date.

I don't know how he's paying through BofA because when I had them, you couldn't even do that with the City.

I'm with BofOkla now, but that might not be for much longer.  The one thing I do miss about BofA was their EBill and automated Billpay.  Set it and forget it.  I'm thinking about trying Arvest out.  Alot of friends have it and seem to like it.

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by Hoss


I don't know how he's paying through BofA because when I had them, you couldn't even do that with the City.

I'm with BofOkla now, but that might not be for much longer.  The one thing I do miss about BofA was their EBill and automated Billpay.  Set it and forget it.  I'm thinking about trying Arvest out.  Alot of friends have it and seem to like it.

Wow, BoA doesn't let you send a check to any person through their billpay? Crazy.

BTW, I have Arvest and I like them a lot. I was with Superior before Arvest borged them and things are even better than they were before. Overdraft fees are lower than they were before (although I can't say I overdraft often enough for it to make a difference) and the online banking is free. Superior charged a monthly fee for a more basic (but more geeky-interesting) site.

Arvest's billpay now is actually a branded version of CheckFree. They made that switch sometime in the last year. So now you can receive bills through their site from anybody who can bill through CheckFree and can send payments to anybody you like, even luddites like the City of Tulsa. (although you do have to go in each month and specify an amount to pay since they don't bill you through CheckFree)

Additionally, they credit deposits before they debit withdrawals and credit deposits same day if they're made before 7PM. So even if you write a bunch of checks (or have a bunch of ACH payments come in) that end up being greater than your balance at the beginning of the day, so long as a deposit is made before the end of the day to cover them, there are no overdraft fees.

Few banks are that customer-friendly. Most process debits before processing deposits, thus slamming you with overdraft fees even when you end up with a positive balance at the end of the day.

Oh, and you get $400 of free overdraft protection.

Aside from being yet another Walton family enterprise, I can't say anything bad about them. After all, they are one of the few banks not taking a bath over in Northwest Arkansas.

[TURobY]

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

Wow, BoA doesn't let you send a check to any person through their billpay? Crazy.

They do, but there is an extra charge if they aren't in their list of preffered billers.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by TURobY

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

Wow, BoA doesn't let you send a check to any person through their billpay? Crazy.

They do, but there is an extra charge if they aren't in their list of preffered billers.

Correct.  And I sure liked their bank triggered EBill system.  I wish Bank of Oklahoma would do that, or I'd consider keeping them.  You can do billpay through BOK, but not EBill triggered.

Sending a manual check through billpay, to BOK's credit, is free.

[RecycleMichael]

quote:Originally posted by Kashmir
To add insult to injury, the bill is 2x what it was when I lived in BA. Oh well.  

The difference in utilities probably explain the difference in charges. The actual water rates are very similar for each of these communities.

Tulsa charges $2.31 per thousand gallons of water used. Broken Arrow charges $2.36 per thousand gallons of water used.