HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — An Oak Forest couple told ABC13 they received a phone call two weeks ago from the City of Houston water department claiming the couple hadn’t paid their water bill for 9 years.
But Venus and Tommie Austin said they have paid their water bills on time. They said they learned from the city that the issue stemmed from their water meter not working for nearly a decade.
“She said, ‘Well, it’s showing that your water consumption is not being registered, she said a guy came out here on Sept. 21 to read your meter, and that’s when they found out that the meter wasn’t working,'” Venus Austin said.
Venus said they told her it’s been 9 years, it wasn’t working, which is why their bills were so low between $40 and $60, but her husband says he believes the water woes are not their fault.
“I don’t think we should be responsible, even if they made a mistake, it took them 9 years to discover that they had made a mistake, and they want to hold me and my wife liable, I don’t think that’s right,” Tommie Austin said.
Mrs. Austin says the water company told her it would take at least 90 days for them to determine how much they could owe.
In a statement, the City of Houston told ABC13 that read in part.
“After final review, good news is the account was not billed for the high consumption. In our efforts to improve our processes and customer service, when a customer’s account is captured on our High Bill report, a customer service rep contacts the customer to notify them prior to releasing the bill. Sometimes the conversation will explain the consumption. The customer had been billed for base charges for several years, and now we got a manual read. We are updating the customers remote reading device so they will be billed for consumption and base charges going forward. However, the current usage will not be billed. The current balance due on the account is $46.”
ABC13 is working to clarify what this means, but the Austins are hoping they will no longer have to fit the bill.
“Mrs. Austin, Mr. Austin, this is what we come up with. This is what we did and now let’s find a solution to the problem so that I’m not out of a whole lot of money that I don’t have,” Venus Austin said.
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