>Ridgewood Water customer: Let $3,500 bill be a warning
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2011
BY REBECCA GREENE
FOR SUBURBAN NEWS
MIDLAND PARK SUBURBAN NEWS
MIDLAND PARK — Chris Rittenger said he was shocked when he received a bill from Ridgewood Water for $3,500.
The bill reflected the difference between how much water he actually used and how much water the company had estimated he used over six years.
The Fairhaven Drive resident said that until he received his most recent quarterly bill, he hadn’t realized the bills he’d been paying for the past six and half years had not been based on actual use at his home.
“Every time we received a bill, we paid it,” he said in an interview last week. “If we had known it was costing us much more to use the water, we would have curtailed our use.”
Rittenger, who has a family of six, said his wife is home and would have been available to let a meter reader in to determine actual consumption during that time.
And when Ridgewood Water recently posted a notice on his door asking to read the meter, he complied.
“When we received the bill, we called them right away, because they said we had to pay in 10 days,” he said. “They suggested we have the meter tested for accuracy. We did — and it proved to be accurate.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/128862038_Customer___3_500_bill_is_one_bad_call_.html
