VIDEO: “What is up with the NJ American Water Company?’. That’s what Mayor Menashe Miller and the rest of the Committee want to know. The Committee this evening were visibly frustrated with the Water Company after a resident explained how the company applied apparently bogus charges to his bill, although he has a septic system and isn’t connected to the water company.
For the last few months, the resident was receiving close to $100 in unknown fees from the water company. After several months of attempting to speak to the higher ups in the company, the company said it was ‘State Law and a Municipal Ordinance which requires residents to have city sewage.
To make matters worse, the resident said he had no choice but to the pay the company after they threatened to shut off his water. The Committee however said there is no such law requiring residents to use city sewage.
“That’s absolutely insane”, Mayor Miller said upon hearing the frustrated resident explain the situation.
The Mayor requested a copy of the resident’s letter he read, and said “I hope the Press picks up on this, because this is something that needs to be taken care of once and for all”.
The Mayor added what a pleasure it was to work with the MUA, the other water company in town, compared to the NJ American Water Company.
“From the MUA, no issues, no problems and the rates are cheap”, the Mayor says, and then from the NJ American Water Company, I get heartburn, I’m constantly and consistently hearing complaints about the NJ American Water Company”. “For once and for all we got to put a stop to this”.
Committeeman Lichtenstien and Langert have asked that the Township formulate a memo asking that the Township send the company, in hopes of solving the many issues with the company. TLS.
lakewood mua is probably the most arrogant company around. im not gonna name anyone but there is no one to talk to there.
so cant we get rid of them?
it cant it big deal, im sure plenty of good companies would love to serve us.
lets get a campaign to throw them out my water bill is nearly 200 dollars a month
where is the APP
Isnt there a court system for monetary disputes?
go mayor Menashe!
30 years ago the town should have bought the Lakewood water company. It is insane that we have two water companies with such drastic pricing difference. As a taxpayer I am upset that my tax dollars go to support and subsidize the Lakewood MUA and I still have to buy water from another water company at full price. I am paying twice for water and it is NOT right. How about investigating this Mayor Menashe Miller.
whats MUA? for heavens sake
to # 7 MUA is Municipal Utilties Authority
We are all hostages to the outrages committed by NJAWC. After being charged exhorbitant rates for water and sewer, we still get charged a hefty sum for PSATC and PWAC. What in the world are those bogus charges all about? $86 on my last bill, out of a whopping $250 total. How about some deregulation and competition, or official boycot on the government level until they clean up their act.
The “American” New Jersey Water Co. was bought by a German firm several years ago and doesn’t even have headquarters in NJ, I believe.
I have been complaining about this for the last year to anyone who will listen FINALLY someone got to you guys
Now do something! We moved into our new house on south side & our water bill increased by $125 all bec of added on fees that were non exsistant on out bills when we lived on 14th street
Water co gave us the same answer as the original poster of this thread
Langert , miller etc we voted u in based on ur promises to us that u will be our advocates TIME 2 show us uDO
a lot of the sewer charges are based on the 3 month usage of Jan-March. I realized that I was being way overcharged so I called them.I spent alot of time studying different peoples bills and their rate charge to figure out exactly how much i should be charged. It turned out they were billing me for using 27000 gallons in the 3 month period when in reality I used 7000 gallons. Over the course of the year the overcharge will add up to over 700 dollars. I called and after going through 3 people and refuting approx. 6 lies( They like to say a lot of hard to understand words to trick you) i finally got a supervisor to agree to adjust the charges. I just now got a letter from them that after further review the original bill was correct. I called up and finally got someone that knew was he was talking about and he looked into it and told me i was right but all requests for adjustments have to be approved by the billing dept. and you cant speak to them . So basically they are ripping me off admitting it and i am still stuck ( He did resend it to the billing dept. but i dont have much hope)
Why in the world do you think that the mua is subsidized by taxpayers. I have no idea but assume that it just sells the water at cost. Also the njaw company rates are outrageous. I lived in spring valley ny for a while and the cost of 1000 gallons is about a third of the cost here
Doesn’t Bob Singer chair or some other thing in the MUA?
#11
the township committee doesn’t own, run or control NAWCO. If you listen to what the Mayor says in the video, thats why he’s so frustrated with them. They will do everything in their power to make noise but at the end of the day they don’t have any control over them.
I am very impressed. I usualy get to see the Mayor when he’s wearing his Chaplain hat. Quiet, humble and smiley. Yet when he hears a problem he puts on the authoritive Mayor hat and fires away! Boy is it refreshing to hear him a take a strong stance and stick up for a yochid.
All I know is that people have only complaints about NJAW. Their prices are outrageous. More importantly, there are alot of slimy tricks to overcharge their customers. Most people are unaware of them and they get to pull a quick one on all those customers.
New Jersey American Water Co. is German owned? Yikes! Now I’ve got six million reasons why I don’t want to support them.
An Ocean Cty. Sewer Authority eng. told me that ,NJ American owes them close to a $1,000000 in sewer fees (our $)for treating our wastewater. The eng. also said that Lakewood’ s sewer infrastructure is VERY OLD and falling apart and that NJ American is not putting any $$$$ back to fix our sewers. They’re MILKING us to the max
It is State Law that if sewer lines run to your property then you must connect to them. Call the DEP. If you fail to connect then you can be charged with a fee to pay back the cost of the lines.
you can try calling the board of public utilities < they are designed to help with such issues.their number is 8006240241. it is a goverment agency designed to prevent the consumer from getting ripped off. hey you never know
So why doesn’t everyone in this town get together and make a case against them. I have mua and my water bill every three months is about 100.00$ for a family of four. my mother who only lives with my father has a bill of 100 or higher every single month. I just can’t understand why. I called last year for her to find out why her bill was so high and received the same nonsense story. Something has to be done.
if you have your own septic system and your own well (like what is written in the article) just throw the bill out.
the BPU never met a rate increase request from NJAW they didn’t like, and then NJAW tacks on additional fees to the bill to top it off. In the last 10 years I have had more angst from them that every other company I deal with combined. They arbratrarily change sewer pockets, make billing errors etc. and there is no one to talk to. Evev BPU complaints rarely gets the company to admit mistakes. All this on top of the unconsciounable rates that are triple the national average. This company borders on criminal, but because they bought the exclusive rights to Lakewood 100 years ago we have to sit here and be abused. We ought to get together put out a bond, and buy the rights off them and merge with the MUA so we can finally be free from their abusive practices. there is no justification for why our elected officials from the municipal lavel to the BPU will do nothing but talk about NJAW every few years. Let’s DO something.
Could we please boycott this company they think they can do what they want
NJ American Water Co always played games with the winter quarter usage. They would give a lowball estimate read at the beginning of the 3 months or a highball estimate at the end of the 3 months.
Their fees are also in the stratosphere.
As far as the fees, some governing body has to put them in their place or allow competition or it won’t get better. Ridiculous to pay $200 a month for water for around 12,000 gallons a month.
But like I said, there is not much we can do to change that without help from the governing bodies.
As far as complaints with them bumping up the winter quarter usage due to bogus estimate reads or other complaints posted above, the best thing to do is file on online complaint with the Board of Public utilities. http://www.state.nj.us/bpu/assistance/complaints/inquiry.html.
After working with NJAWC many times with complaints & getting nowhere because the people you speak to are either clueless or don’t have the authority to fix your issue, I filed a complaint with the BPU & got my issues resolved within 48 hours. Within 24 hours of filling the complaint, you should hear back from someone in the utility, that is genuinely interested in resolving your issue & has the authority to do so, because they have to report back to the BPU that your claim was resolved.
This is extremely effective…
Every year they did these bogus estimates on me & I resolved it with filing a complaint with the BPU. After a few years, they stopped giving me these estimate reads.
This utility company is the worse by far (& yes, they are a Swiss company, nothing American about them…) & someone should throw them out on their head! There are so many fees added to the bill it is outrageous.
By the way, you can only file a complaint about bogus charges.
As posted earlier, the BPU approves every request NJAWC makes to increase the rates. They do not help us in any way in that aspect. But they are very effective in getting the bogus charges fixed.
I also got ripped off with their sewer charges! They did low estimates readings including december in order to inflate the winter sewer charges (u pay all year based on this) i requested several times an actual reading, but didn’t do it only in january and charged me high sewer charges all year based on that. I even went to a hearing but noting helped!
If a class action goes ahead I still have all paper work to proof that scam!
The masa umaten writes every year about their scam
I would suggest a CLASS ACTION lawsuit against the NJAM
Blesides the high charges, I’ve had problems with sewer backups for years,which always come from their side of the line, so they are responsible for clean up. Right? Wrong! At least that’s what they try to tell me – that when their dirty water backs up, they don’t have to clean up my basement. Well, it’s happened many times and B”H, I always get them to clean up, although it does take a lot of phone calls and agmas nefesh, involving the BPU etc. It’s a good thing there’s a BPU!
So happy you are getting on top of this case. A few points : why can’t we all get the option to switch to MIA?why can’t we opt out and use well water.why is there never anyone to talk to from this German company.why all those fees. My bill used to be a normal85.00 now its a whopping 289.00 what’s up with that. Plus njaw uses devious practices. By sending cutoff notices immediately automatically every month. Why can’t we use our own well water? , Menashe, people , TLS, stick with this story. We can win this. These people ARE crooks charging us exorbitant fees for water that Gd gave them. A CHUTZPAH!
I posted a letter on another site a short while back. I reviewed 10 peoples bills the month of Feb and found that everyone had an increase of 4000 gallons for that month while nothing changed in the household. I myself changed from a top loader washer that was using 50 gallons of water to a front loader that uses between 10-15 I do around 100 loads a month. I kept track. So that should change my water bill and lower the usage between 3000 and 4000 gallons. There has not been one difference in the bill. I tried disputing but no luck. Who can I give all the details to that might be able to help?
By the way, my meter is now underground, so I can’t even verify if their reads are accurate. I wouldn’t put it past them to give false bloated reads in the winter quarter.
Let the NJ AG follow the money… unless of course they are in front of it!
# 32 if your water is underground there are two things you can do either open up the cover and take a picture of the meter or you can call the BPU and ask that they verefy the meter is correct. I think it cost $5.00
I think a class action law suit is the way to go here.
I wonder how we can arrange that.
i have been saying this for years ….
NJAW is just a re-seller and must be well connected ( not to water 🙂
Is there a law that states that once you were connected to the water company, you can’t switch to well water for your household? Maybe this law should be repealed?!
i just got a bill for over $300 for one month of water usage! its crazy. there was nothing i did different this month then the last 11 months
I love it how every time they obtain a rate increase they have a spokesman saying how the increase will add less than 10 dollars to the average monthly bill. They must have a whole lot of seniors who spend time in Florida and average 2000 gallons a month. Here in Lakewood where an average sized family uses 6 to 12 thousand gallons a month these rate increases can add up to hundreds of dollars annually. They have a stranglehold on us and untill the politicians realize that this is important to their constituants, this wholesale highway robbery will continue.
Thanx for the support. Keep up the pressure!
Sorry to tell you this folks… there is NOTHING that we can do about this. They are a MONOPOLY and can file rate increases every year and it WILL be approved. I don’t think ever in history has a utility companies request for a rate increase been denied. They create “facts” to prove the need and the BPU simply rubber stamps the request.
We are simple dopes thinking that this is being done fairly. The fact that the MUA charges so much less should tip us off to the real cost. A friend who lives in White Oak pays 85.00 a month with 8 kids and my family with 4 kids at home is paying NJAWC 200 per month.
Makes you wonder… maybe HH can do something about it???
I missed one month and they came on a Thursday afternoon, and turned off my water. Achzarios!!!
Why are we forced to use American water? They have an unfair monopoly in our town. If there was more competition we would have a choice as to who would be our supplier and the rates would go down.