www.jeffthefish.com

So the water company that services my area, , charges you $3 if you pay your water bill online. For comparison, their late fee is $5. Why am I getting penalized for using their website?

I sent them this email:

I’ve mentioned this before, but the $3 fee for paying online is unacceptable. I work in the ecommerce industry, and I know first hand that this is unnecessary. It’s either an artificial fee that exists for no purpose other than making Minol more money, or an artifact of an archaic system. My guess is the former. If I had a choice of provider, I would switch in an instant for this reason alone. It does not cost you $3 more to process an online fee than a check, and if it does, you need to get a new system. This is 2008.

If they send me a response, I’ll post it here. Last time I complained they gave me a pretty lame excuse, but I don’t know what it was. I’m thinking of complaining every month.

URGENT MINOL UPDATE!!! 

I just recieved this very excellent response!

Good afternoon Jason,

I agree 100%, however we do not process over the phone/web payments through our system.  We outsource that processing to authorize.net.  There is a fee for this service, and is passed along to the resident.  We are working to improve our in-house systems, and apologize for the inconvenience of a processing fee.  I would rather send my check to avoid the fees.  The other option would be to utilize online bill pay with your banking institution, as they would draft your account, then process a check to be mailed just as you would.

We appreciate your feedback.

This is not the response I was expecting.  They did not give an excuse, but rather agreed with me that there was a problem, explained the reason, and assured me that they were working to improve the situation.  I think that’s the best response you can get from a utility company.

Amen.

Stumble it!

Posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 in Category Funs. Please comment, ok?