comment: >
  
  Stupid mistakes must be a thing for all of them. 
  When my husband and I got our first water bill for our house it was crazy high. Don’t know how, but it turned out that a local restaurant’s water bill was combined with ours.
context: Residents were being charged a connection fee based on their water usage. 
  
  OK, so they pay a flat rate and have a maximum amount they are allowed to use. Wonder what, if any, visibility they have of their usage?
  
  Residents learned it was part of an audit authorized by the county commission in September 2016.
  
  So an audit was done from 2016 onwards to monitor usage?
  
  The residents said they received the high water bills in the final weeks of 2022.
  [...]
  According to a county memo, the audit found “220 residential customers and 87 businesses were determined to be using capacity in excess of 120% of their current allocation.”
  
  So they audit for 6 years, let people unknowingly exceed their allocations, then backdate it and slap them with $16k+ fines? For going 20% over? This screams of cash grab. >
  
  So, you could have moved into a place in 2022 but have to pay for the last 6 years? >
  
  Yup, they said it’s a transferable fee. >
  
  That doesnt make sense.  What about the monthly rate that, assuredly, everyone was paying through that period?  Commissioner should go to jail i guess? >
  
  Years ago when I moved into my house they tried to hit me with the last tenants stretch rate for energy.
  It was nearly 700 a month for a 2 bedroom.
  Had to fight that for weeks, now I pay around 120. >
  
  I once got a 1200 bill for gas. No one would listen to me that a 1 bed apartment without so much as a stove, couldn't use that much gas, even if I had opened the valve and let it run for the month. Months later, after God knows how many calls, and having moved house, one intelligent soul took 2 minutes to look at the records and came back with "looks like we charged you for cubic meters instead of cubic feet, the bill is actually 200" if I could have kissed that guy I would have (I did write a very nice email to his boss)