CHAPIN, S.C. — The property manager of the Chapin Commons, Drew White, said they were charged $24K by Columbia Water. He said they were charged for using 4.2M gallons of water over eight months.
White said that's more than 10 times what the water bill should have been.
"Looking at this, how they charged us, doesn’t match what’s on the meter," White said.
According to the meter, only 402,000 gallons of water was used between three businesses—a small gym, restaurant, and hair salon.
"We expected it to be elevated, but not $24,000 for eight months," White said.
Comparing the bill and the meter, White believes an extra zero was recorded next to the gallons used, which resulted in the costly amount.
When he reached out to Columbia Water, he said the response was not helpful. "Do you have a leak? Did you leave something on? It’s not our fault. This is what the meter is telling us," White said.
White says when he tried to contact billing services, the customer care representative said he was not allowed to be transferred.
In a statement, the agency said:
"Much like all of our internal departments, from IT to Maintenance, our Billing Department does not interact specifically with the public. Our Customer Care Department handles all calls for billing, as they do for other services related to customer service."
On Tuesday, Columbia Water told White, it would send crews out to check the meter in 2-3 days. The agency told News 19 they have a system that flags any bills that don't look correct.
"We have several steps in place to alert us and customers when billing and usage is out of the ordinary:
- Consumption Alert – Alerts Billing staff of high consumption use.
- Billing Alert – Alerts Billing staff to abnormalities in bills.
- Leak Alerts – Customers receive notification through the Eye On Water app when continuous flow of water is detected at their house by their new AMI meter. We encourage all of our customers with AMI meters to download the app at https://columbiascwater.eyeonwater.com/signin.
- Disputed Readings – Whenever a customer disputes a reading, we always verify that the reading is accurate and the meter is operating properly."
Columbia Water also said reading and billing errors are not as frequent as people may think.
"The most recent data I have are the maintenance service requests from June 1, 2021 through January 13, 2022. Under the category for Water Meter Check, we had 763 service requests to check a customer’s water meter. It is important to note that this does not mean the meter was not working, just that there was a service request to check it. Our internal metrics indicate that of the 149,313 new automated meters that have been installed, there have only been 369 issues with the meters. In other words, 99.8 percent of our new meters are operating properly."