District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority — Local services in Washington

I’m signed up for ebills, and this was working fine until May. I just got a past due notice in the mail, so I checked and now I see DC water hasn’t sent me a bill since May. They have sent me a bunch of emails asking me to take a survey though. So now I’m in a panic because I don’t want them to shut off my water, so I try to log in to the website to pay the bill. The log in spins and spins and then gives an error and tells me to call customer service. I call customer service, and the automated system tells me to put my account number in. So I do, and nothing happens because like their website, their phone system doesn’t work either. So I ended up putting a check in the mail and hopefully that gets to them before they shut off my service.

The past due notice didn’t provide any breakdown of the bill, which is really annoying. I wanted to know if they charged me any late fees, because I don’t think I should have to pay any late fees. They should have a functioning ebill system and a...

Bureaucratic, incompetent, not-caring, technologically archaic. We settled the sale of our DC house in early June 2024. It was a few clicks on the internet to stop the gas and electric services. Not so easy with DC Water: they only accept stop service requests through the settlement companies. So our settlement company submitted the request on the closing day. DC Water acknowledge its receipt and chose to continue to charge us anyway. Almost 2 months later they sent us the late payment notice and late payment charge. We argued with them through the settlement company, so they finally processed the service transfer but still charged us the "late payment fee". Then we went on this treacherous journey to request the refund on the "late fee". It took 2 more months, endless emails and phone calls to eventually get our money back. It's just mind-boggling bureaucrats can harass ordinary people like this. Shame on you! So glad we left DC, will never look back. Adios, self-claimed...

Holy moly, where to start. First, they provide safe drinking water to the best of their abilities. Yay! But billing... wow. If your credit card changes and you forget to update your account, you will get a very large late fee within 24 hours, even if the mistake is obvious (like your card didn't go through). Most places send you a reminder email, but not DC Water. They're worse than big banks. Recently, I sold my house in DC after a few decades. It's taking MONTHS for them to close out the account so I get my money back from the title company. (Because DC water is based on address, not name, the title company will hold back money to ensure the final bill is paid). All that said, you can get a LOCAL person on the phone pretty quickly, and they will help you. That's why it's 2 stars instead of 1. The customer...