Thursday, April 20, 2006
Philadelphia Water Revenue Bureau Website
I went to pay my water bill today by calling up the Philly Water Revenue Bureau. I was on hold for a while, and when I finally talk to a person, she tells me that they don't take payments over the phone. I mean, every freaking other company and utility on the planet does, but not Philly water. She tells me I can pay online. So I go to their website (www.Phila.gov -- don't forget the "www" because their dumbass webmaster has the domain set up so you NEED the www. Otherwise you get an unfriendly error message. Dumbass webmaster.) I type in my account info, and it tells me I owe twice as much as my paper bill says I owe ($120 instead of $60). I find this very confusing and worrying, so i call the water company back and ask them how much I owe. The woman tells me--in her emotionally dead, monotone voice--that I owe $60. Good news for me. So I tell her about my confusion with the website, that it say I owe twice that much. She tells me that a payment was received 3 weeks ago, and that the website billing info is only updated ONCE A MONTH. WTF?! I nearly sent them all my food money for the month because I thought I owed them $120!! Isn't the whole freaking purpose of paying your bill over the web is that you have access to up-to-the-minute (or lord, at least up-to-the-DAY) information?! I politely tell her I know it's not her fault, but maybe she could pass on to her manager a suggestion that they update the site more frequently. She says, "ok," in that tone of voice that means, "yeah, right. fuck you. Like I don't have better ways to spend my time than pass your stupid-ass suggestions onto my mangager." I repeated my request, explaining that I nearly sent a lot of extra money which would have seriously hurt my ability to buy food for the rest of the month if I'd actually paid what the website said I owed, so it would be really nice she passed that along to her supervisor. Again came the same, "Ok." You know, I was in a good mood until I called them...
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1 comment:
Looks like suggestions really fly like lead decoys. There ought to be automatic prompts on the customer service line for a quick, easy account summary. Of course, if my snail-mail bills tended to arrive I wouldn't be worried about it, but they keep going MIA. Then each month I know I must have a balance due but don't know what the frig it is. Only time it can be found out is during buisiness hours when there's time to wait on hold.
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