One day as I am getting ready to start my day I hear people talking outside my bathroom window but I thought it was my neighbors. Then it sounded like those people were actually touching or doing something on the exterior of my house. When I look, it's two people from the city who said they were disconnecting my service "due to non-payment". I said..."I paid my bill!!". In a rude manner, she told me I would have to call the city to talk to them. I run upstairs to get online and before I could get to my banks website to see if my payment was ever even withdrawn, my power was off and there went my internet service. I went to my history and there was indeed several pages history that lead up to a page showing where I "authorized payment". I called and the woman said I couldn't make payment over the phone, i would need to come in person and that I would also need to pay $36 or so as a reconnect fee. I show up and get in the "payment" line and make my payment which included an additional $50 extra to cover the reconnect fee and then some. After I paid, I called to let them know payment was indeed made and asked how long it'd be before my power was back on as I was heading to work and would not be back until about 2am or so. She claimed it would be on in about 4-6 hours.

I come home around midnight only to find that my power was still not on!!! It was freezing and I was so scared to be in the house by myself with no power/alarm. I had a flight the next morning which i had to still pack for and couldn't because there was no light, not to mention I had been working all day and was very dirty and couldn't even bathe because the water was probably not hot anymore. I cried myself to sleep that night.

When I woke up in the morning, my power was still not on! I immediately called to find out why my power was not on yet. The ever so rude (no surprise) lady asks me what line I got in to pay my bill when I went down there tomake my payment. I told her I paid in the line where you make your payments in when she proceeds to tell me that I needed to pay in the "customer service" window not the "payment line", and that's why my service was not restored. ...!!!

I called before I went down there and the lady didnt mention that although she knew my service was disconnected, when I got there to pay and the young lady opened my account in the system to apply my payment, one would suppose that she would've told me that after seeing my account in disconnect status in the computer. Then I called after I made the payment and the lady I spoke to then also never mentioned anything about paying in the "customer service window". I was furious!!! After I demand that I speak to a manager, even the manager then tells me that I will have to pay the reconnect fee...? I explain to her that I included that (and then some) in my payment. She tells me that they will not be able to honor it because it wasn't paid in the correct dept and I will have to come down and PAY IT AGAIN!!! This is a manager I am speaking to who is seeing that the payment was indeed made although I didn't stand in "the right line" because i was misinformed, knows that I have a flight to catch, and still had me on the phone for 22 minutes trying to negotiate with me about whether or not she is going to reconnect me without making me come back down there to repay the reconnect fee that I had already paid to begin with!!

Bottom line is, the payment, although the history showed I went to a page that said "payment authorized", never went through. I blame their online bill pay system because it was always giving me issues (not anymore). It 's just a shaky payment service site and i have always complained about it.

The "manager" never apologized for being misinformed and potentially making me miss my flight and the amount of stress I was going through (i was crying on the phone while I was talking to her). Not to mention, their billing cycles are so off, they can confuse anyone!! One month my bill may be due on the 4th, the following month it will be due on the 31st...??? The worse part of that is, not only due they charge you %20 late fee if you don't pay on the due date (no grace period), but if you don't pay within 5days, you will be disconnected. This department has lost their minds! I love living in this city for geographic reasons but dealing with these incompetent scum bags make me want to pack up and never look back!