Rates just don’t tally

AM I the only person who checks what Buffalo City Metro charges?

Take water, they have a sliding scale of the rates they charge for water at the bottom of the account. Check your consumption and do simple maths based on the “advertised” rates … It does not tally! Either the rates printed on the account are wrong or their computers need to go back to school and learn basic maths!

My consumption of 24KL should work out to R412.14 (excl VAT) according to their rates; why am I charged R435.87? And this happens every month.

For electricity, I have a prepaid meter but my BCM account shows “readings” every month and I am charged for electricity consumption!

I queried this a few times by e-mail and got no reply. When I phone the “call centre” I’m told it takes at least 90 days to attend to a query and I must phone back when the 90 days are up. Is the message “nobody will look at your query in the first three months, so don’t even bother”?

In the meantime I’m being charged interest because I obviously refused to part with my money for electricity I did not use.

I could pay the account in full, but are my chances of getting that money back as good as a certain country waiting for a certain president to pay back taxpayers’ money that he wasn’t entitled to. — C Ribeiro, East London