2 days ago
'We all deserve some money back': Liberty Utilities hears from upset customers at Town Hall meeting
AURORA, Mo. – On June 5, starting at 6 p.m., the Missouri Public Service Commission held a town hall to investigate the customer service and billing practices of Liberty Utilities.
According to Forrest Gosset, Communications Director at Missouri PSC, the investigation was launched due to a significant number of Liberty customers expressing frustration over increased billing prices and a lack of communication from them.
'What the commission told our staff to do is go out, invest and report back to us what's going on, what you find. So, there's no preconceived notions about what we're going to find,' says Gosset, 'We just want to hear people talking tonight. It's really about the consumers being able to ask questions. The (Liberty) Utilities are going to be at the table.'
Customers were able to stand at the podium for 2 minutes each, asking questions and speaking directly to Liberty representatives.
'We all deserve some money back, a lot of money!' one woman stated before leaving the podium, which was met with applause from other customers.
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'I'm going to be honest here; you're billing process sucks,' said another man, which caused the room to erupt in laughter.
Heather Nickum said she and her family's bills had inaccurate amounts due to their billing, which has made them skyrocket in cost.
'There's been bills that have been tripled, quadrupled, and I call them to get help on that,' said Nickum. 'I get passed along. I get told, 'Oh, check your appliances, check this, check that.' No, it's not from our appliances.'
Charity Tweed is the City Manager for the City of Miller, who states that she and others are being taxed, even though the city is tax-exempt. When she tried to get answers about it, she claims there was little to no communication from Liberty.
'The problem was all the customer service representatives I talked to, including management, said they had no direct line to billing, no emails, no phone numbers,' said Tweed, 'They didn't even know who worked in those departments. Every single one of them I talked to.'
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Kelli Price, the Communications Director for Liberty Utilities, says that they have been listening to their customers' concerns.
'We did implement some new systems and that did include a new billing system. And for some of our customers, it has been less than an ideal billing experience for that,' says Kelli, 'We do want to start first by just apologizing. Our customers do expect and quite frankly, deserve to have timely and accurate billing.'
Kelli states that 'all customers deserve a good billing experience,' and they are currently addressing the problems and are working to fix them for most people.
'We have been making steady progress. About 99% of our customers are being billed as they should, but we still do have some areas where we are still continuing to work, particularly for our customers who maybe have more complex billing,' Kelli says. 'But we are seeing improvements. So fewer calls to our call center, for example.'
According to Gosset, there are more town halls scheduled in the next few days, with one happening at Branson City Hall on June 11 starting at 12 p.m., as well as one in Ozark that same day and then in Joplin on June 12.
Missouri PSC also is holding Liberty's currently pending electric rate case during the week of July 21-25.
If you would like to make a comment regarding Liberty's customer service or billing issues, please visit the Missouri Public Service Commission Press Release and click here.
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