By Buli Sonqishe
A local resident is having sleepless nights because of her ongoing billing issues with the City of Johannesburg (COJ).
Tracy Meyeridricks contacted the NEWS after her attempts to get the matter resolved, failed.
She said that she originally contacted the CoJ, through the Modderfontein office on April 26 this year to query an agreement of debt.
She said while she was there, she also queried why – on that particular month when she had only used R71.99 worth of water – she was charged an amount of R902.74 for sewer. This pushed the amount for water to over R1 000.
“I am exceptionally careful with water, so this seemed incredibly odd. It was then pointed out to me that a ‘sewer availability charge’ is only meant for a vacant stand. Since my house has been standing for over 65 years, and I have been living in that house for nearly 15 years, I knew this was impossible,”said Tracy.
Since April, Tracy has called the CoJ call centre on numerous occasions. Each time she is told a different story.
On July 21 she went back to the Modderfontein office where she addressed another query, namely how it was possible to be charged a manual disconnection fee three times in one month, and be given a pre-termination notice as well.
“Obviously, each time I contacted the call centre to query the other references. I have inquired about this query too. I was told it is still open and unresolved. My account is sitting in huge arrears based on the fact that on June 24, 2014, without notice and while I was not at home, CoJ came to replace my old rotation meter with a new Itron electronic meter. As I was not present at the time, I was unable to check the meter reading on the old meter and to sign acknowledgement of the meter and the meter reading,” she said.
The billing went on as per normal until December 2014 when she received two accounts.
The first stated that her account was R3 559, the second arrived a few days later and reflected an amount of R31 118.77. She said she logged a query regarding the calculations and was told that this was because of the new meter installation.
“They stated that the electrical meter readings were correct but why had they made severe adjustments? Why did they over charge me for my property rates as well as my water and sanitation accounts? I contacted the call centre on March 6, 2014, to investigate this query further as I had not heard from them. I was told that the query was deemed to be correct and that they would not allow me to open another query on the matter. Needless to say, as a single, self-employed mother, I was unable to pay this outrageous amount,” said Tracy.
To date, she has still not been able to resolve her queries.
She said she has, whenever possible, tried to pay more than what is due on the monthly account in order to pay off this outstanding balance slowly, even though she does not believe it is due.
A request for comment – with relevant information pertaining to Meyeridricks’complaints – was sent to CoJ on August 17. Comment should have been received by 10am on August 18, but at the time of going to print, no comment had been received.
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