Severn Trent Services In 20 years of paying bills....this is the WORST Company I've been unlucky to be forced to deal with! Houston Texas

I have been paying bills for over 20 years, and by far, Severn Trent is the worst company I have had the misfortune to be forced to deal with!

My experiences with them...

• Three years ago, when we first moved into Katy, we inherited a torn trash can from Severn Trent.  When I went to sign up for service, I told them about the broken trash can and they said they would have the trash guy bring a new one.  However when their garbage truck driver came by, he refused to empty our trash, nor did he have a new trash can for us. He told me that he cannot pick it up and that I needed to call the main office for a new one.  So we had to put our trash in one of our vehicles and find a dumpster to take it too!

It took me making weekly calls for 3 months before they finally brought a new one! This is an unacceptable business practice, since we know what they would have done if we had failed to pay them!

• I pay all of my bills infront of my computer, except this one! They're payment options are limited and ancient.
• Their Disconnection notice process - On about May 2014 I got a bill. I wasn't able to leave my job that month, and the next month I got a disconnection notice. Within days of receiving it, I went to pay. The young lady at the front desk told me that I owed a little over $70.00, I paid and left.

The very next week my daughter called me at work to tell me that the water was off! I left my job and headed to Severn Trent ,all the while thinking that I was growing senile in my 40's, because I could have swore I'd just went by last week and paid this bill. I stopped by the ATM and pulled out $120.00 ($70 plus an extra $50, as I guess-timated the reconnection fees).

When I arrived at STS, I asked the same young lady at the front desk "what happened? why was my water turned off? I came here just last week and paid May and last I checked, June isn't due until the end of JUNE!" And here is what she said...."Once we send out a disconnect notice, even if you pay the past due amount, they don't stop the disconnection. The only way to stop the disconnection is to pay the past due and the next month."

Let's go past the mediocre excuse she just give me  and go straight to what that translates into.....What she was saying is that Severn Trent will disconnect a customer, even though they are not delinquent!

For example...you have a cell phone and you are past due. Now you know that the next bill is due in a few weeks, but just so your service doesn't get turned off, you pay the past due, while you get your money together to pay the current bill, right? Well, if your cell phone company was Severn Trent, they would not have accepted you paying the past due only. Instead, you would have had to pay the past due month, the current month, and if you got disconnected, a reconnection fee, BEFORE they would consider you current!

• Their Reconnection Fee - I was so stunned by what she said that I just looked at her for a minute. I blinked back the shock and asked ...."So what do I owe?" She pulled out her calculator and said "$230.00". I laughed, because it was impossible! Simply impossible! I said, "Mam, I already paid you $70 just last week, and I'm assuming that June will be around the same amount, plus a reconnection fee, so what do I really owe you?"

She said "the June payment is $70.00, and the reconnection fee is $160.00, so that's $230.00."

I asked, still shocked..."are you telling me that your reconnection fee is really $160.00?" She nodded.

I became lightheaded and had to take a few moments to calm the rage that was building! This was simply unbelievable, because now...I had to get back in my car, drive to an ATM to get more money and then drive back!

Fast forward now....I went by there today, to pay my bill, and the very same young lady took my payment, stapled the receipt to the statement, turned it over, stamped something in red and shoved it back under the glass. Since I do not trust them, I read what it said....

Effective December 1, 2014

No Change Will Be Given

Exact Payments Only

Now....they had just happily taken my hard earned money, so since I was face to face with them, wouldn't it have been nice if they had included good customer service by politely explaining the stamped words and inquiring if I had any questions?

If you steal someone’s tires you go directly to jail, and yet....this city's government has been allowing this company to blatantly practice beneath even the poorest company standards, while financially profiting from it?! There is no other way to put it.....disconnecting someone's service when they are not delinquent is illegal, and a reconnection fee of $160.00 is unethical and should be considered theft!

So to all of you like me, who are not on the streets stealing or hurting anyone, but working 5 days a week, paying our taxes and doing our very best to pay for the services we use, I truly wish that this company would kick rocks, shut down and never be allowed to do business again!!!!

And to those government officials who have allowed this company to prosper at the expense of the consumers...you should be ashamed!