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Madeira Beach Water, Sewer Billing Glitch Affects About 2,000

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By CARLOS MONCADA | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 27, 2008

About 2,000 Pinellas County water and sewer customers in Madeira Beach recently received late notices threatening to cut off their service.

Just one problem: Those delinquent customers never received the initial bills.

An Atlanta company that prints invoices for the county's utilities department failed to print and send last month's bills, said Tim Wiley, the utility's customer service director.

"We did bill the customers correctly," Wiley said. "What happened was the print file generated out of our computer system went to our billing services print house, and they didn't print the bills. They can't explain why."

The county learned there was a problem last week when Madeira Beach customers who received the late payment notices began calling to say they never received a bill, Wiley said.

Since then, the county has had numerous meetings with the company, Skywire, with the goal of avoiding such problems, Wiley said.

The county is preparing a letter of apology for those who received the notices of delinquency, Wiley said. He said the notices are being stricken from customers' accounts and that they will face no penalties.

Reporter Carlos Moncada can be reached at (727) 451-2333 or cmoncada@tampatrib.com.

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