AUB Waiving Late Fees on Some Bills After Billing Delay
Media Contact:
Wayne Scarbrough
(423) 745-4501 ext. 6002
wscarbrough@aub.org
February 9, 2017
ATHENS — Athens Utilities Board (AUB) is waiving late fees on customer bills that were mailed later than normal recently, creating a short period of time between when the customer received the bill and the due date.
The bills in question were issued by AUB on Saturday, January 28, and show a payment due date of February 7.
AUB account numbers contain 10 numerals and two dashes and are prominently shown on AUB bills in a format that features the billing route in the first two digits.
For instance, if your account number were 44-123456-78, you would be in billing route 44.
“We are waiving late fees for bills in routes 40, 42, 44, 46, and 52. If your account number begins with any of those numbers and shows a due date of February 7, you are included in this late fee waiver,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.
He said that this cycle of bills usually is mailed on or about the 21st of the month, so this latest cycle went out about a week late.
“That’s not enough time,” Scarbrough said. “We realize that some customers just received these bills last Friday, on February 3rd, so that gave them only three or four days from the time they opened their mail until the due date.”
Because of this, AUB will not assess any late fees for the billing cycle in question.
Customers who did not pay by February 7 will not be assessed any late fee, but Scarbrough said they will still likely receive the payment reminder that AUB sends customers when a due date passes without payment.
“Those reminders go out automatically two days after the due date if payment is not received, so some customers in these billing routes will get the notice but they will not be assessed any late fee,” Scarbrough said.
He explained that waiving the late fee does not mean that the account would not be at risk of disconnection if the bill goes unpaid altogether.
“The normal non-payment disconnect date for accounts in these routes is Tuesday, February 21. Call us if you have any questions about your account, please. As always, we work with any customer to the extent possible. But the current action we are taking is related only to waiving the late fee,” Scarbrough said.
He explained that the late billing was due to a crunch on resources available to process bills. AUB’s billing depart has just hired a new billing clerk to fill a vacancy.
“We run very lean, with only two billing clerks processing about 16,000 billing records every month. We were down to one clerk for a couple of weeks and our senior billing clerk worked considerable overtime to get these bills out accurately as quickly as possible. That’s why she was in here on that Saturday evening in January getting the files complete, albeit later than normal in the month,” Scarbrough said.
Still, he said, AUB regrets the late mailing and invites anyone who has a question as to whether their bill is included in this action to call customer service representative at (423) 745-4501.
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