Bought our home in and, unbeknownst to us, our mortgagee was making payments to Hawaii American water from an escrow fund set up to also pay real property taxes and mortgage insurance When we refinanced in 2012, the new mortgagee had no arrangement to pay the wastewater service bill However, Hawaii AmWater apparently continued to bill the old mortgagee and we had no knowledge that we were even responsible for these fees After more than a year, HawAmWater figured out that their bills were being ignored by our old mortgagee and finally determined that they should be sent to us As a result, we opened the mail to discover a gigantic sewage bill, which may or may not have been filled with over a year's worth of late fees (unknown because the bill was not itemized), and which demanded immediate payment Under obvious duress to pay the bill without incurring more late fees, we paid up (only later receiving a letter of apology regarding the situation and an offer to work out a payment plan--which by that time was too late) We are now getting the regular monthly bills but the online and telephone payment options assess a fee Seems pretty unreasonable given the fact that this is a public utility and we have zero choice in using their services I would have thought that at least the online payment method would be free
Bought our home in and, unbeknownst to us, our mortgagee was making payments to Hawaii American water from an escrow fund set up to also pay real property taxes and mortgage insurance When we refinanced in 2012, the new mortgagee had no arrangement to pay the wastewater service bill However, Hawaii AmWater apparently continued to bill the old mortgagee and we had no knowledge that we were even responsible for these fees After more than a year, HawAmWater figured out that their bills were being ignored by our old mortgagee and finally determined that they should be sent to us As a result, we opened the mail to discover a gigantic sewage bill, which may or may not have been filled with over a year's worth of late fees (unknown because the bill was not itemized), and which demanded immediate payment Under obvious duress to pay the bill without incurring more late fees, we paid up (only later receiving a letter of apology regarding the situation and an offer to work out a payment plan--which by that time was too late) We are now getting the regular monthly bills but the online and telephone payment options assess a fee Seems pretty unreasonable given the fact that this is a public utility and we have zero choice in using their services I would have thought that at least the online payment method would be free