DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A pair of metro Atlanta residents say their county incorrectly charged them for their water bill for more than a year.
The most recent one was more than $27,000.
Channel 2’s Eryn Rogers spoke to the DeKalb County residents, who said they’ve been getting charged more than 10 times what they usually pay, and crews shut off their service earlier in the week.
At the home on Habersham Drive, Rogers spoke to the residents, who have the water back on, but had to go two days without.
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Both have medical needs.
“It’s normally about 40-some dollars, 30-some dollars,” 79-year-old Shirley Shanks told Rogers.
She said she usually pays the bill for her DeKalb County home, which she shares with her disabled daughter.
“She’s blind, she’s had a couple strokes, she’s bedridden,” Shanks said.
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Then last September, Shanks said she noticed a problem.
“I got a bill for 320-some dollars,” Shanks said. “I went ahead and paid this bill because I said ‘well, I might have a leak.’”
But then it happened again, this time even higher.
“I got another bill, and it was $605,” Shanks said.
So she hired a professional to come check it out, and he didn’t find a leak anywhere.
Instead, he found out that Shanks was getting billed for the wrong water meter.
“The bills that I received were for ending in 09, and my meter had a number ending in 07,” Shanks said. “Bottom line is the water meter and the water bills don’t match.”
And in all that time, Shanks was getting charged for how another home was using water, instead of her own.
Shanks told Channel 2 Action News that when she went to the county for help, “they told me that they had done all that they could do for my bill.”
Meanwhile, Shanks said the bills kept going up over the past year.
“Never got corrected, they kept billing for it,” Shanks said.
On the most recent bill, Shanks said she was charged more than $27,000.
Then on Tuesday, the county shut her water off.
The county started investigating and turned her water back on, which cheered her up a little, but she wants them to fix their mistake.
“It’s been crossed over for some time and they need to just correct it,” Shanks said.
On Saturday, Shanks told Channel 2 Action News that county officials said they’d be fixing her bill soon.
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