City of Austin Utilities

I have lived in Austin for 10 years. I have had nothing but trouble with Austin utilities. Over charging (twice), sending bills to the wrong address, I got a $ 430 water bill in May from the usual $ 20. Just me and my dog. They came out and checked for leaks said there were none but the bill was correct! I asked how could that be, I got a lot of BS. They finally recanted after many calls and complaints. I made my Jan payment using their 3^rd party called «Bill Matrix» who sent the funds to another non-​existent account. Another 1.5 hr call to try and straighten the mess. I have not seen the level of incompetence that I experience at Austin Utilities. Whomever is in charge needs to be fired.

Here’s my story & what I’ve written to the VP of Cust Relations & Cust Svc.
(I’m also a widow to an IBEW Electrician who died servicing power so I know the value and respect for Electical services beyond what most could imagine.) *Truncated letter.
1.26.16
Dear VP of Customer Service and Customer Relations,
This letter is written with GREAT DISMAY and DISAPPOINTMENT! Please note that I will be posting a SOCIAL REVIEW of this issue to Unilocal and on your AUSTIN Energy FB page.
My issue stems from the fact that I as a customer for over 13 years had made a request for a transfer of service based on an anticipated purchase of a new home to my new address.(NORMALLY AN EXCITING AND WONDERFUL EVENT!) However, life happens and with a purchase of a new home my close date got pushed back from the lender. I as soon as, I found out about the new date for closing called Austin Energy to advise them of the impending shift in dates around the move of homes and TRANSFER of said services.
To my great DISMAY my services were not only turned on with the new home early despite a Supervisor listening to the tape to verify that I did advise of change dates. I was also told that I would be charged a fee of $ 20 to have said services that were erroneously turned on disconnected until the new move in date. To add insult to injury, I also had my existing services at current residence disconnected. To which I discovered after coming home to my current residence to discover my garage door was not working. So I proceeded into my home to learn that power was out. I immediately called Austin energy pleaded my case to the representative who had me on hold and on a call for over 50 minutes to only have the call disconnected. During the time of the initial call they reviewed the tape for two calls one for the original change date and the second call to advise of the new change date for closing and thus what I assumed was tied to the request to transfer services to the new address and maintain service at the existing address. I was not allowed to speak to a so called supervisor but was repeatedly told that a supervisor was reviewing the tape of the call. To which I was essentially told it was my responsibility to advise to not stop services at existing address. I’m sorry a normal conversation with someone about a transfer of services there is an assumption that when one item is transferred to another that the initial locale is not to be penalized for receiving said transfer. I was however not only penalized for having services erroneously transferred to new address despite the supervisor recognizing that I did indeed call for the change of dates. I was then also penalized for not securing that your agent who made the change date noted in your system to Feb 12^th (Which Obviously didn’t help because new home has services despite the call verified in your call recordings.) that said agent knew that the existing services that were providing the new address as a transfer to was not going to stop services of the residence of which I currently reside until said closing on our new home. I was then accused of dropping the ball for not advising said agent at the time of the need to not stop services from the original change date. This is ironic to me that while I’m accused of dropping said ball your recordings for so call quality care and training purposes actually only proved that your company failed by still turning on said services. So, in essence I came home to a house with no power, unable to get it turned back on despite what your recorded calls showed me calling in requesting the changes. Without as so much as concern for customer with a zero balance and INSULT to injury I was forced to camp out in my home but I tried to be reasonable despite being a single widowed mama with no family in town. So the two ladies were going to be brave and camp out at home. Despite being unable to cook dinner for my daughter I took her out to McDonalds a relative treat for any 9 year old to have a dinner of sorts and do her homework at 7:45 after having been on two unsuccessful phone calls for over an hour of an half of requests for your companies agents help to remedy an error on your part to no avail. I pulled myself up and my crying daughter yes she was crying. You probably have that on a recording too now pleading for help to restore our services. Without avail, we came home determined not to stop us from our daily flow of dinner, homework feeding the dog in the dark and camping at home with no running water and power to be found. Mind you I’m living in boxes with most of our items being ready for the move that got pushed. So I had no idea where candles, lanterns, batteries etc., are truly now. Yet alone Especially in the dark! We come home and decide to crawl into bed IT GETS WAY WORST with Sirens and eventually Firemen having to be called to disarm Screaming FireAlarms jarring us out of bed and piercing our bodies until 3 a.m. for an hour and a half.

I had service with COA for 14 years. I never missed a payment nor was I ever late. I moved outside the city for a year and came back. They said I have to pay the deposit since I didn’t have the last 12 months service to show. 14 years I had perfect service! Now I have to pay $ 200. Plus, I got my first bill… electric $ 70,water $ 25,total bill $ 200.25 with all the other fees they charge for. I will move back out of their service area ASAP.

Austin Energy has been pulling a scam on consumers for at least a couple of years now. Their meter readers read the water meter low in the month before waste water averaging starts. This causes a high reading the next month and an artificially higher waste water average. At $ 10 dollars per thousand gallons of waste water, this means an additional $ 40 per year per customer that Austin Energy scams. Times a hundred thousand customers, that could add up to $ 4,000,000 that Austin Energy rakes in with their dirty little trick. Nice scam.

They give us energy. We pay for it and it’s fine. Don’t believe people who only write Unilocal reviews to complain. It’s not like they have many other choices. They’ll complain no matter what.

Update to the billing issue.
I paid the full amount due, late fees and all, after being told essentially «that’s how it is.» by Austin Electric.
This was in July. Since then, apparently Austin Electric has been double dipping their bill for me and my apartment complex, making us both pay. Resulting in a nice explanation I had to give to the apartment manager.
No worries, it’s just a mistake that will get fixed on their end. Another billing issue and all, this time with the apartment complex. No worry to me.
Woke up this morning, in November mind you — months after all these billing issues, with my electricity randomly turned off. Having been tagged and cut off for billing issues by the company.
Apparently after their original mistake on my bill they decided to make another by billing the apartment as well, then round it all off by «accidentally» flagging my electricity to be turned off. It’s a good thing today is my one day off of work, sitting and staring at a dark wall was the plan all week.
The intelligence of Austin Electric knows no bounds.

First– I REALLY support a municipally owned utility. But good god, folks– you have GOT to STOP operating worse than a small town PTA organization. My issues:
1. I had an orphan cart for 2 years. For a year and a half, you denied it’s existence. I gave you the number on it, you told me that your guys had picked it up. Which was strange, since I was staring right at it. But that was call after call after call. Whatever. I ignored it, through a re-​build. I had better things to do.
2. Time to move into the house. Once again, your people were completely adamant that I didn’t have the cart that was before my eyes. Way too big for us, so FINALLY, the decision was to deliver the new, smaller cart and then pick up the orphan cart.
Directions were to park it on the street with a sign directing pick up. We did it. It took you 6 weeks to get it. We started calling every dingle day after 2 weeks. In the meantime, passers-​by dumped their trash, cigarette butts, dog crap– you name it, they dumped it. It was an unsanitary, mosquito-​attracting menace to the environment. The whole neighborhood really loves you for that. And THANK YOU, for your contribution to the incredible bug problem in Austin. Love ya for that.
3. This month’s bill? 6 times what the average use of this home has ever been. At least you noticed, are «working it». This isn’t the first time your meters have gone nuts. What I know is that it will be 3 – 5 months before you EVER work it out. Another whatever, but really– if you don’t need the money to the point where you can wait a full quarter for it, why even bothering billing me at all?
4. Yesterday, your collectors took our garbage can away with our regular collection service. We noticed right away, called. «It happens all the time», I was told. The solution is that you’ll get us a new one in «1−2 weeks». Which means «whenever».
While I pay for the service (that is incomplete) and while my garbage stacks up… Exactly where? In my house? A bug infestation, waiting to happen. On the street, outside my house? Hello, critters. And sure. Because what we really need is to provide snack material for the coyotes, after they’re finished eating all the urban cats and stray dogs.
If this happens «all the time», then you need to get an emergency cart crew moving. For you know– emergencies that you cause. It is very big of you to invite me to place as much as 60 gallons of trash outside my house, for collection. But I’ll invite that sort of «nature» NEVER. Better to place it in the middle of Oltorf, and then call the police. I’ll take a ticket, and you’ll get a nice little visit. I’m likely to call a news crew or two, They’re always happy to «investigate».
Sound fair?

I’m almost vomiting giving this worthless company a star. they don’t work with passed due balances of PREVIOUS accounts even when you just got back on your feet and are trying to start over with a new job. I got on part time after my job site took a budget cut. I was one of those cuts but the city of austins heartless management continues to use there monopoly of a company advantages. I even said I would pay half down the rest later and of course the bastards still won’t budge why? because there ethics are fucked up. I hate the city of austin utilities and can’t wait for deregulation to take its toll on all there managers paychecks then maybe they’ll have an ounce of compassion when it comes to helping people out.

City of Austin is nothing but organized mafia disguised as public utilities. They overcharge for their services, decline to provide any evidence for the meter readings, and takes forever to get hold of anyone in their customer care. I paid all my bills regularly. In October they added $ 88 for estimates errors on my August and September bills. The customer care agent kept changing the story. First it was error in estimates, then it was a pending bill then it was a cancelled bill in August which I actually paid and they have record of it. The support rep wouldn’t give me any agent ID or any evidence of someone actually visiting to read the meter except just dates. The dates wouldn’t make any sense. If I wanted not to pay this disputed amount, they would charge me a late fee despite the fact that it’s their error.
I lived in Cedar Park for 12 years and never had any such problem. I moved to Austin less than a year ago. I had heard many horror stories about them but didn’t realize they are such crooks. I wish there was another alternative. They are so arrogant. Instead of admitting their error and fixing it, they treat you like a 2 year child.

Really one of the worst city experiences I’ve had. Among other things, if you opt for ebilling, the send you messages on the pdf of your bill that you can’t see if you just logon to pay your bill rather than go through the bill for inaccuracies (my bad). My bad because my usage rates are all over the map and make no sense based on my experience of how I use utilities (very little) since I’m single. There’s is no seeming way to dispute anything, the response is that’s it and/​or it’s our policy.
Trying to then pay bills is like the maze in The Shining and doesn’t register for days. There is also no way to find policies/​procedures around billing etc. They sorta seem to make it up as they go and have no reference to point a customer to. If you have any way to avoid the attitudes and the service do it…

All the horror stories are true.
I’m lucky that I didnt have to pay the security deposit like other reviewers, because the state where I previously lived actually had utility companies that will mail the letter of credit. Besides the seriously overpriced billing, I usually dont have issues as long as I dont try and call CoA.
That changed recently as I have been trying to make an online payment for the last two weeks and get halflway through the process, onto the last screen which states «The City of Austin Utility Service website is currently unavailable. Try again later.»
I tried again later more than five times over the last week. Then I contacted them via email to see what was up. I received a response back in a couple days saying «the site should be back up». I tried again and still had the same issue. Their website leaves a LOT to be desired. I went through the hoops of calling only to find out they charge fee of $ 3 for phone payments, no matter what you use to pay them (both credit card or ACH). Ugh.

I’m new to Austin, so obviously I’ve never had a COA utilities account. Ok… I understand charging a security deposit on new accounts, and it’s nice that they offer a chance to waive the fee… but they didn’t make it clear to me that this waiver relies on only ONE holy document: the Letter of Credit.
Unfortunately my old NYC utilities company no longer issues letters of credit, so as an alternative they kindly faxed my account statement to Austin, showing my entire history of being a great person!
Back on the phone with Austin, the representative sounded like a broken record– «yeah we only accept a letter of credit» is all she knew how to say, and supposedly speaking to a supervisor requires them to write a formal request sent by carrier pigeon to some distant land where they will contact me at their leisure.
Ok Austin Electric: If seeing a list of every payment I’ve made isn’t enough, how about credit reports? Isn’t that what they’re for? Instead you limit your policy to one particular document… why even offer the waiver?! It would have waisted a lot less of my time on hold for nothing.
But anyway the rest of Austin is so awesome!

They are the absolute worst, their online system is buggy as hell and even if you stop your account, that request might not get registered and you will get charged for it.

The absurd water bill I received is not being acknowledged as a problem by Austin Utilities. I have read the meter on my own and relayed my findings. 100 gallons of water in less than 24 hrs is absurd. I had not showered, done laundry, ran the dishwasher or watered the lawn. The meter is WRONG! Living alone, washing my hands and flushing the toilet a few times does not take 100 gallons of water.
How do we fight this? It is all over the news and social media but, nothing is happening?

HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICES EXPERIENCE
I called to figure out why I was CHARGED TWICE for my last billing month only to have an argument with a customer service call representative. Rep basically told me it was my own fault for not calling to cancel, when I canceled though the online payment portal. Rep kept cutting off my sentences and kept repeating I was at fault in an argumentative tone. I told the rep to keep my money just to stop speaking with him.
City of Austin Utilities does not even deserve one star, if given the option, I would give negative stars. Hopefully Austin residences will have option to go with other energy providers in the near future.

These guys are crooks. This monopoly over city power should be illegal. Its bad enough that their rates are terrible, and they can barely support the city with its weak infrastructure, the employees are always some sour grapes.
These guys deserve two awards, Worst customer service, worst energy company in Texas.

The City of Austin got you by the balls.
In east Austin the soil is mostly clay. You are required to water your foundation or it will be ruined. The City of Austin charges water rate at about twice that of Horseshoe Bay, or 80% higher than Elgin, you end up with water bill $ 200 a month for the 4 months the city is hot like oven. Austin Energy also charges higher rate than Horseshoe Bay and Elgin, about double in the summer months. My summer utility bills come to around $ 800 a month. This is the most ridiculous way to rob the residents by a city that is supposed to serve them.
Good review won’t help the city, and bad review won’t hurt the city. That’s the beauty of monopoly.

City of Austin Utilities is terrible for a long list of reasons. Over the last 8 years, I’ve experienced unexplained water usage spikes in the absence of any leaks, dramatic bill increases upon receiving a new smart meter, outages, $ 600+ utility bills on a regular basis and Smart Thermostats that took control of my home temperatures.
However, my primary purpose of this review is to warn you about their «Rush Rewards» Nest $ 85 Rebate program.
While I don’t participate in this program, I had a terrible experience with a similar program that provided you free programmable thermostats in exchange for control over your usage during «peak» demand hours.
If you have an older less efficient home like I did, I highly advise against this program. And I feel it’s negligent on their behalf not to disclose this warning. Long story short, the duration and frequency in which they turned off my thermostat (you can’t turn it back on) created a situation where I couldn’t actually keep the temperature down, especially upstairs. In the 30 minutes my AC would be off, my house would increase several degrees in temperature. While I admit my house was built in the 70s, lacked sufficient insulation and had old AC units, this was not a problem prior to my participation in this program.
For a newer, well insulated home like my new one, this program is probably ok. However, I would never in a million years relinquish control over my thermostat to COA for $ 85. And trust me they use very ambiguous language in their policies and they really downplay how often they will turn off or down your thermostat.

**Update**
Still a little upset about what they put me through, but seriously, if you’re having an issue: Ask to speak to a supervisor. Even if they have to call you back, and the call comes tomorrow: wait for the call. I didn’t get the name of the lady that helped me but I am 10 000% happy with the way she handled my situation. Refreshing to know there is at least someone who works here, that actually wants to help you.

Instead of emailing me my final bill they did two things
1) Mailed it to an OLD address that they had on file for me.
2) Sent it to collections.
Receiving a notice that my bill was sent to collections was a shock. Why wouldn’t they email me my final bill? I asked that, and the gentleman on the phone said it was their policy not to email the bill after the service has been cancelled. What sense does that make?
Someone not very sharp is running things over there…