To the Editor:
I am writing this letter in response to my experience with Columbia City Municipal Utilities, located in City Hall. On June 7 I came home to find that our electricity had been shut off. Seeing as how I had mailed a check to them 2 weeks earlier, this did not go over well.
I called them and they said they did not receive my check. They suggested that I call my bank to see if that particular check had cleared, and my bank said it had not. So I called them back, saying the check had not cleared and I would be up to make the payment. The woman on the phone proceeded to tell me that I would have to pay the past due bill (which they had not received), my new bill, which was not due till June 20, plus a $40 reconnection fee. All this added up to $160.89. Fine, we go to the bank and withdrawal $160.89 in pennies from our account. The money was all rolled and boxed in sets of $25.00 straight from the bank. My husband and I delivered the money, and we were told that we would have to wait while they counted it. I agreed to wait. Then, the woman came back and told me that she did not have the time to count it, and I needed to make some other form of payment. I offered to help her count it and her response to that was to slam my money down on the counter and tell me that my electricity would not be reconnected until I brought her some real currency. I told her that was unacceptable and she proceeded to call the police chief in. While waiting for the chief, these customer servicers decided it would be appropriate to laugh and point fingers at me. The chief was unavailable, so another officer arrived a few minutes later. He told me that CCMU does not have to accept my payment if they don't want to, and by paying in pennies, I was asking these women to work over and above their job description. So, I sat down and waited. While I was there, a few people came in to pay their bill; these people had also been disconnected. I kept hearing the woman at the desk tell these people that normally they would have to pay the past due bill, the current bill, and the reconnection fee to have the electricity turned back on, but she was going to do them a favor and only make them pay the past due bill and the reconnection fee. I was never offered this alternative. The only choice I was given was to either bring back some real money or not have electricity. As CCMU is the only electrical supplier here, I had to go back to my bank and withdrawal another $160.00, this time in ones. As you can imagine, this also was a pain for the woman who had to count it, evidenced by the look on her face and the big sigh she let out when she saw the money. Needless to say, my electricity will now be turned back on.
My problem with this is not about the money, or the reconnection fee. I understand that many people do not pay their bills, and it costs the city money to go back and forth shutting electricity off and then on again. However, our bills have been paid, and we have never been problem customers. One other time have we ever received a disconnect notice from CCMU, and I called and asked why my payment had not been posted yet, as I had mailed it out a couple weeks before that. The woman on the phone said that mail going less than a mile from my mailbox to theirs, can take up to 18 days, if not more. Thankfully, that time my payment made it a mile down the road before the disconnect date. Granted, the pace of mail is not the responsibility of the CCMU. However, I find it hard to believe that my bill always arrives the day after they mail it, yet somehow, my payments are not arriving in their mailbox on time. Plus, if they know that mail takes up to eighteen days to go from Columbia City to Columbia City, then you would think they would give their disconnect notices 18 days to go from their building to my home.
Today was a complete waste of my time, and as a local business owner I do not have a lot of time to waste. My time is just as valuable as the women's time at CCMU, and just as valuable as the other people's time in this community who has been unhappy with the service we get from our local electric company. Now more of my time will be wasted, since it seems that I will personally have to make a trip to City Hall every month to ensure that my electricity will not be disconnected again.
Even if they did not like my payment in pennies, federal law states that all U.S. Coin and currency must be accepted as a form of payment, unless the collector posts otherwise. I did not see anything at City Hall, nor have I ever received anything from CCMU stating that they do not take pennies as a form of payment.
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