ACC Water Business Office - Athens, Georgia

Sofia B.

Ms. Lisa and Aniyaa are literally so amazing! They helped me with my water situation and always are such positive people. If you ever need someone who is well informed and knows how to do a great customer service, ask for Ms. Lisa and Aniyaa. I love them!!!

melody B.

Absolutely the most horrible customer service I have ever come across. After moving to the area and starting my water service it took almost 2 months before my first bill became available. That is all fine however on the very first bill it was over $800 because of a suspected leak. There was no outward or internal leak visible and the building management came and cleared the building and even replaced the meter. After calling the first time to ask about my bill I was repeatedly told there was a leak and I need to fix it. After speaking with Lisa Yearby who I spoke with at least twice within 2 days but she seemed to have no recollection. Lisa gave me the run around and seemed to have absolutely no idea of how to do her job or how to even direct me to someone else and when I asked to speak to someone else she became upset. I called again and was finally able to speak to someone with a little mor competence named Tina. Tina will be the only redeeming factor in this review as she was knowledgeable patient and helpful when I called. Tina was able to explain that I needed to submit a water leak adjustment form. After submitting the form and waiting over a month for it to be processed with the high balance still on my account I decided to call for an update. Today I spoke with a young lady named Brittany, Brittany was the kicker and the final piece to my frustration as I asked a few simple questions. First I asked of the status of the leak adjustment and she said its still pending. I then asked to confirm that my service would not be interrupted while its still being processed and she assured it wouldn't. I then asked what form would the adjustment take be it a credit to the account or a refund of the payment i have been making towards the high bill. At this point Brittany decided that she wasn't in a customer service position and will just talk to me in the most rudest way possible . If answering some basic questions sends you over the edge and makes you combative towards a customer you do not need to be working in this kind of position. Now 6 months later I am still waiting on my water bill to be fixed and on top of that I get yelled at by employees for asking questions.

Sonuel D.

TROUBLE IN THE ATHENS WATER BUSINESS OFFICE: If you are a Customer of the Water Business Office, please beware - your water could get turned off due to No Fault of your own, even if you pay your bill on time.

Today, December 30, 2024, my water was turned office while my wife was in the shower. I knew I had paid my bill on time, but I called the Water Business Office anyway to see what was going on. That's when the person told that my water was turned off due to nonpayment. I knew that couldn't be right.

I told them that I had paid my bill (in fact I overpaid it) via OnLine Payment thru my bank. But they said nope we have not received it.

After insisting that I had made the payment online thru my bank I was told to get proof of payment from my bank and bring it to the Water Business Office.

So, I contacted my bank. The bank told me that the payment had been processed and sent to the Water Business Office. However, the Water Business Office had not negotiated my check.

I went to the Water Business Office and gave them the proof they had requested. However, I was told that they still couldn't help me because they had not received my payment.

Long story short, I met with four (4) different people at the Water Business Office; an Account Rep., her Supervisor, His Supervisor, and the Head of the Billing/Collections Department.

In the process of meeting with them, I was told that the Water Business Office had been having problems getting customer payments on time because the U.S. Post Office had been late delivering the mail since July, 2024. As a result, some peoples water was being cut office, and some people had to put stop payment on checks. Still no one seem to know what to do to resolve my situation.

In an effort to plead my case, I told them that I did not receive a Late Notice or any warning that my payment was behind or that my water was going to be cut off. They said they didn't do that anymore; once a bill is (mailed) it is the Customers responsibility to know that the water may get cut if the bills is not paid on time (sic).

I asked them why they didn't do a courtesy call, email or something - given the ongoing problems with the Post Office not delivering mail on time. Nope!

Long story short, again. I was at the Water Business Office for about an hour and a half. And even after I provided proof that I had paid my bill on time, and after meeting with four (4) different staff people, no one was willing to turn my water back on.

So, I asked them what did I need to do to get my water turned back on. They eventually agreed to turn my water back on, but only if I made another payment. So, I paid them what they asked me to pay just to get my water turned back on today.

I decided to share my experience with the Water Business Office because No Customer should have to go thru what I experienced today. It was embarrassing, inconsiderate, and wasted a tremendous amount of time for myself and the four (4) paid staff people who clearly did not know what to do to help me, nor did they have a solution for my situation. Although I provided them with the proof of payment that they asked for, they still would not turn my water back on, without an additional payment.

I felt as if they were blaming me and the bank for the problems they are having with the Post Office not delivering mail on time.

I asked them if they had put any measures in place to deal with the Post Office not delivering the mail on time. I also asked if they had notified the public about this problem, since people water was being turned off due to no fault of their own. And not one of them said that they had done anything to inform the public about this dire situation. Nor had anyone developed any proceeds to deal with this ongoing problem internally.

Clay C.

DO NOT SIGN UP FOR AUTOPAY. It takes over 30 days for it to actually come into effect (but you will never find this information on their website). And if the billing system goes down (which will happen on a near-monthly basis), autopay will not come into effect. Oh, and you don’t get a notice online if your bill has been paid or not.

If only there was a medium where ACC could communicate these drawbacks… perhaps in a website?

Alexis D.

The worst company. They make it so difficult to pay your bill online, they took me off autopay when I didn’t ask for that. Now every month when I go to pay my bill online, their website is either down or is barely loading. Their website was loading so slow that it locked me out of my account for no reason, it’s been 3 hours and I’m still locked out when I’m putting in the right password. Guess my bill will be payed late. And if you try to call them, they don’t help for anything, just rude. It’s 2024, update your payment website.

Stephanie D. C.

If I could give them a zero I would. I honestly think no one in management cares. Try leading from the top down. Why work in customer service if you hate people? Is it really that hard to be nice?

Zac C.

I've had pretty good experiences with them historically (both via phone and in-person), but the majority of this review is due to how helpful they were with a specific issue I was having.

My wife and I had recently moved into our house from an apartment and noticed that the first water bill seemed pretty high (I think it was around $200). We initially chalked it up to having a sprinkler system since we didn't have a frame of reference for how much a bill should be with one. With the next cycle, the bill almost doubled; we realized that something was way off and decided to call into the water office.

I wish I could remember the name of the woman that helped us, but she was really great. She talked through the pricing/tiers with us, and helped us problem solve on what could be causing such a high bill (e.g., ruling out leaks, etc.). One huge thing she did involved looking through data on our water consumption.

She went out of her way to not only look at our consumption, but pinpointed the hours that our address was heavily drawing the water. It turned out there were multiple spikes early in the morning between 5-8 AM. This was a key part in us figuring out that our sprinkler system was running three separate water cycles and dumping way more water onto the lawn than we ever intended.

It's admittedly pretty silly of me to not realize that the lawn was getting watered that heavily, but I'm genuinely very appreciative of how helpful the staff at the water office were. We fixed the issue with the sprinklers, and our next water bill was almost a quarter of the last. I don't think the issue would have resolved so quickly without their help.

M. W.

Their website is very difficult to navigate and often down. You can call and often be put on hold for 20 min. or more. I had signed up for auto-pay with my credit card, but they kept sending me paper bills and then charging me late fees, even 2 months after I signed up for auto-pay. (I had previously been paying that way but had to re-do it because I had to cancel my credit card due to fraud.) I went to the office to try to resolve this problem. After a long wait a guy there told me that I was not signed up for auto-pay. I said, "Okay, just keep me on the paper billing, since your computer system doesn't seem to work." When I got home I checked online and it said that I am enrolled for auto-pay. Checked my credit card account and saw that the ACC Water Business office has been submitting bills there, but for some reason the payment was denied. I have been unable to take my account off of autopay. It seems very wrong that their office person, looking at my account on his computer, said that I was not on autopay at all, then I go home to see that I am on autopay but the payments have not been going through.