Small find but a clean one and it may be worth checking across your book.
Water utility charges an annual backflow prevention assembly test fee. On this laundromat account it
is being billed monthly. 32 dollars, every month, 31 months back through the records I have.
The client had noticed it and assumed it was a standard service charge. The actual annual test
happens once, in the spring, performed by a contractor the client hires and pays separately. So they
are paying the utility a fee for a test the utility does not perform, twelve times a year, for a test
that happens once.
Recovery is only about 900 dollars so this is not a headline finding. But it is the kind of thing
that sits on an account for a decade because the amount is below the threshold where anybody looks.
Two things I would flag for others. First, check whether an annual fee is being billed at a monthly
frequency any time you see a round number recurring. Second, ask the client who actually performs the
test, because that question is what broke this open.
Water utility charges an annual backflow prevention assembly test fee. On this laundromat account it
is being billed monthly. 32 dollars, every month, 31 months back through the records I have.
The client had noticed it and assumed it was a standard service charge. The actual annual test
happens once, in the spring, performed by a contractor the client hires and pays separately. So they
are paying the utility a fee for a test the utility does not perform, twelve times a year, for a test
that happens once.
Recovery is only about 900 dollars so this is not a headline finding. But it is the kind of thing
that sits on an account for a decade because the amount is below the threshold where anybody looks.
Two things I would flag for others. First, check whether an annual fee is being billed at a monthly
frequency any time you see a round number recurring. Second, ask the client who actually performs the
test, because that question is what broke this open.