In the “Three Stooges” character Curly constantly said he was a victim of circumstance. Many customers of the Amarillo Texas water system have all of a sudden been getting obnoxious water bills. It seems that a new computerized direct digital water billing system was installed.

Per www.naturalnews.com “Amarillo residents report water bills surging 300% after digital smart meters and new billing system installed.. Two residents saw usage jump from 11,000 to 44,000 gallons, bills rising from $118 to $307. City blames drought, seasonal watering and leaks; residents deny plumbing issues.”

The city has not responded citing need to review individual accounts.

It should be noted that the system records, reports and bills.  Many municipalities use these systems and other automated systems. People do not see people during the process.

There is distrust if the meter was even read.  Digital life requires a level of faith. Digital life requires human monitoring and corrections. Digital life requires vendor ownership and vendor ownership requires client and vendor communication, and vendor transparency.

In the case of Amarillo there is suspicion. The digital system is seems to track more data.  Not only the total water bill, but when and how water is used.  Intrusive yes, but was the information used wisely by the water company.

If as water officials say that people with large bills have leaky plumbing, why did the water company not alert people of the usage.  When starting the system they had the ability to incorporate data from the old system.  If an excessive usage were occurring they could have alerted earlier in the cycle.  In the world of autodialers and random text messaging this is not impossible.

It does not make sense that if the starting reading is the same as the last meter reading or greater than the last reading then the digital process may have a flaw. If second month bills are less than the first month’s billing then there is a need to review the first month process.

If as they say that there is expanded information then the water company could use the information on a proactive basis to help customers not get surprised. There is tremendous suspicion by customers where there is a lack of true proactive support from vendor especially when the vendor advertises that the data and timing is available.

A good water company if they have the ability to notice high usage, and they have some of these statistics could have beneficial customer relations by being proactive.  The water company should not just say get a plumber, they could have some plumbers on call to assist and worry about the charges later.  If people get plumbers and find no leaks, then the flaw is in the billing system and the onus is on the water company.

Oh to be a vendor!