City utility customers were handed a surprise Christmas gift in the form of a 10 per cent penalty on accounts which were unpaid, most likely because the city was unable to mail statements.
The great majority of us are very diligent when it comes to paying our city utility bills and so we were surprised that the city would penalize us even though no bills went out. The city posted a “news flash” on their site, most likely after a few complaints, that said, “Due to the Canada Post strike, we were unable to mail out utility bills as usual. We communicated this delay through social media, our website and other channels and informed residents that payments were still due by the original deadline.
“Unfortunately, as a result, penalties were applied to accounts that were not paid on time. We understand this may cause frustration and we appreciate your understanding during this challenging situation.
“Please remember all utility bills must be paid by the due date to avoid penalties. For future reference, you can always view your utility bill online of sign up for e-billing to ensure you receive timely notifications….”
Well, we are glad that the city appreciates our understanding but perhaps they are a bit presumptuous. We recognize that the city policy is that utility bills must be paid on time, bill or not, however, we are in the habit of paying our bills when the statement arrives. And we are used to having the bills arrive in the mail every month.
And while we recognise the mail strike made this impossible, we were not focused on the fact that our bill wouldn’t arrive. This was compacted by the fact that it was the Christmas season and our minds were on other things.
All this is to say that the city should be more flexible when it comes to something like a mail disruption, especially at Christmas. Perhaps they could follow the lead of the County of Newell who decided that since the mail strike lasted three weeks, they would add three weeks’ more time to pay the bill.
Now that’s the Christmas spirit!
