Absolutely Livid!!
Find a Conversation
| Wed, 05-03-2006 - 10:30am |
Today started out so wonderful until the doorbell rang, and there stood one of my neighbors from down the street. She handed me an envelope and said, "This came to our house by mistake. Sorry I didn't bring it earlier.", and it was my WATER BILL! Well, I open it up only to see it was LAST MONTH'S bill!! Due on April 18th!!! Oh My Goodness!!! I actually got weak in the knees when I thought of all the days/weeks that had passed since then! My thoughts ran to my Dh who is due home from a business trip tomorrow and would we have water running when he got here, and were the crews going to stop by today to shut my water off, and just everything you can think of! I ran upstairs, grabbed my purse and literally dumped it onto the floor in a frantic panic, and grabbed my debit card and rushed to the phone. I called and when the poor lady in customer service answered, I was near tears, blurting out to her that my neighbor had just brought my bill...LATE! To my horror, the customer service lady said that my next bill had already been mailed....so I had a late fee. Ugh...It was only $2.50 or something like that, but still....it should never have happened!! So I asked to pay the entire amount (last months bill, the late fee, and this month's bill that I also haven't received yet--$47.45). She processed the transaction for me, and when she got back on the phone to give me my confirmation number, I started asking about cancellation of service (she says not until it's 3 months late...whew!), sending the account to a collection company (she says not unless it's over $50 so I just barely dodged that bullet), and I asked if it would affect my credit because I really don't want anything to raise my interest rates while I'm trying to tackle my debt load, and she said that because I just paid everything in full and it hadn't gone to collections, it wouldnt affect my credit. So on that front, I'm ok it seems. I just wish my heart would stop racing!
I'm setting up an alarm each month in my cellphone to go off and remind me of the water bill just in case it's delivered to a neighbor instead. Our water company does not have consistant billing times and the due dates and mailing dates vary from month to month, so I'm going to have to set up some way to remind myself.
Man, this just made me mad....my neighbor is so lucky I didn't get my water cut off or get turned over to collections. When I get a neighbor's mail, I take it over immediately, or leave a message for them to call me if they're not home so I can bring it over that evening after they return from work or errands, etc. I never wait as long as she did. Good grief!!
Pat

Hope your day gets better and dh gets home safely.
Love
Anne :O)
That is so frustrating. Last summer one of my credit card bills got sent to my next door neighbor by mistake. I happened to go over there to retrieve my DD one day and that is when they mentioned that the bill was there. Who knows when they would have brought it over if I hadn't gone over there. The bill was past due at that point, of course. At least twice a year I get mail for the people who live one block over. We have the same house number but on different streets, but I always bring the mail to them the very day that I get it. At least your mishap won't mess up your credit.
Heather
Whew!!!
Becky
CL of 4th, 5th & 6th grade Scoliosis
I'm sending you magic calming vibes, LOL. Deep, calming breaths.
I really freak out about that stuff, too. For me, it's when dh's business expense visa doesn't get paid in time to avoid interest charges--even though it's like $3, and even though he pays it out of his allowance, it just gets me all in a tizzy. I start thinking, what if he gets behind and loses track of his reimbursements, and it ends up getting run through the roof, and I end up having to pay it after all our other debts are paid, and and and... ugh! LOL
Anyway, my experience has been that the regulated utilities are the among the last to report you, cut you off, or otherwise cause trouble over late payments. And one month is nothing. Even the $50 thing would be, I imagine, only if the $50 were LATE--so you probably could have missed another two payments before having that one reported.
Glad things worked out, and I'll pray your neighbors are quicker on the uptake the next time! LOL
Oh, and I'm glad to hear you've set a reminder. I actually have all my bills entered into a spreadsheet, which is how my budget is made out. But an extra benefit of that is, each pay period I go down the list and pay each item on the budget, and so if I don't have a bill, I know it, and can call and find out the amount and still make the payment. I love my bank's online bill pay feature, too, which is free through most banks nowadays. Saves me a stamp and an envelope and a check, and it gets paid on time, and it's EASY. I can set reminders, or even have it pay automatically each month (which I've actually learned doesn't work for me because I forget which are on auto pay and end up double-paying on occasion, which of course creates havoc in my budget, yikes).
Anyway, glad things worked out. Blessings,
Heather
Hey Pat,
It's great to see you taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again. To be honest, though, I don't think I'd send them extra money. Why? Because utilities are notoriously slow to report lates, their late fees are low, and they give lots of advance warning before cutting people off. The risk is really quite low, especially since you've started marking it in your calendar already.
I think you'd be better off putting that $50 in a savings account (where it will earn more interest than the cost of a monthly late fee) and keeping it there for the next time something like this happens on ANY of your bills. That way, you've already got the money set aside for late fees and anything else that can happen if you accidentally pay a bill late.
Better yet, if you don't already have a buffer in your checking account, leave it in your checking account and write it out of your balance. That way, if you ever accidentally overdraw your account (and who doesn't once in a while?), you have a buffer to prevent those horrendous bounce fees and NSF fees and so on and so forth.
Anyway, I just think that $50 could be put to better use somewhere other than sitting in the utility company's pocket making interest for them.
But of course, you know best what will work for your situation, and you should do whatever is best for your peace of mind.
Blessings,
Heather