Did you figure out how to navigate call center hell? Choose the option for information about your bill, then listen to them recite (SLOWLY) the information about your bill and then FINALLY ask if you want to speak to a representative. Because there's no option in the top level of the menu to simply speak to an agent (except if you want to discuss your sewer bill or have an emergency).
Now, to get to the bill information in the first place, they make you key in your 9 digit customer number and 9 digit site number. And then, guess what? After you make the menu choice to talk to a representative -- THEY MAKE YOU DO IT AGAIN.
And then when they finally pick up, they act like they don't have a clue who you are, when I'm sure it's on the screen in front of them.
In our case, it's been five months (FIVE MONTHS!!!) since they read our meter...and all this time they've been charging us an ESTIMATED rate that's three times our normal usage...apparently because the last time they read our meter, we were still watering the damn grass.
So they're sending out someone to read the meter on Monday...and guess what. I have to CALL THEM BACK to ASK them to adjust the bill.
I said, What? I'm not calling back through this call center disaster you have. Why can't you simply adjust it and send me a corrected bill?
And the answer I got was, "Don't you want us to adjust your bill if it's incorrect?"
BITCH.
I said, "I want someone to call me back after the meter is read. I am not going to call you. It is a waste of my time to try to get through to you."
She said, "I'm making a note of that in your record." And then she damn near hung up on me she was trying to get off the phone so fast.
IWC is getting a nasty letter from me, and if they don't clear this up pronto, the city and the IURC are going to get a lengthy complaint about them.
Thank God Citizens is buying them. Citizens is the only utility I've ever had an easy time dealing with in this town.
IWC remains the only office I have ever been escorted out of by security guards, after they had me so enraged over shutting my water off with no explanation when we lived in Broad Ripple. They required me to take time off work to go to their office in person to sort it out.
It was when I learned how to turn my water back on at the street.
A-holes.
Sometimes phone trees are programmed so that, if you shout obscenities instead of following the prompts, it puts you straight through to an operator. I believe the idea is to keep angry people from getting more angry.
I mean, sure, you could just press zero over and over until you get a real person, but the swearing can be more fun.
Heh.
Zero is a main menu option, but it is supposed to be for people reporting emergencies.
I want to talk to someone in Indianapolis, not somebody in some call center somewhere God knows where.
What I think I will actually do is just not pay the bill, and wait for the next one to come. I maintain that I don't owe them anything anyway, so they can stuff it.