Philadelphia Water Department PWD, Water Revenue Bureau Why does the PWD have their own laws and no choice, security, or protection for their consumers? Philadelphia Pennsylvania

I bought a rental property in 2009 and I was never late for payments for every month. Three years later, the PWD sent me a letter that said that my meter is not working. They had to replace it. So I let them in, and they replaced the meter.

It is the Water Department's meter, and I still had to pay $170 for that. I paid that bill. A month later, I got ANOTHER bill for about $5000! They said that this is the estimated usage bill. That doesn't match at all. They said that if I do not agree with their decision then I can go for a hearing. So I did that.

This was a complete joke. This hearing officer did not have an answer for any of my questions. he said I can go appeal again. I was really upset. I said that you wasted all of my time and money! Then he said that I can go and appeal again. He said that when i recieve the officer's decision by mail then i will get 30 days to appeal.

After many phone calls, which I had to wait 2 hours for each one, they transferred to the superviser and I got disconnected. Finally I got the chance to talk to the superviser. Two months later I recieved the decision and appeal notice. So I was there for the hearing.

Like I said before, this was a complete joke. I was listening to the judge's decision for each case before mine and his ruling was so unfair. Even if it is 100% completely the PWD's fault, all he does is take the penalty off the total bill. 

So my turn came. I was there at 9:30AM. Around 12:00PM they called me. They said that I reappealed after I sold the property,so now I don't have a case, which is not true. I sold the property after I appealed. I called my title company to talk to the judge. The judge said that we don't want to talk to anybody.

While the judge was talking to me, the lady from the PWD walked out because that was her lunchtime. The judge told me that she walked out so now he couldn't do anything. If the judge actually had control of the case, the lady would have waited.

That is another reason why this is a complete joke. To me, the judge is also a PWD employee. That was the way I felt.