Consumerist
New York City's billing system is so screwed up that the city can't collect millions of dollars in overdue payments.
Debtors with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt go uncollected. Since 1999, the city has had the power to shut of water to delinquent accounts, but has refrained. Their meters are so screwy it's uncertain they would be in the right, and they fear lawsuits.
"Joseph Mannino, the owner of a small building on Staten Island has a water bill of more than $260,000, which represents some 200 years of water use.
"There's no way I could have used that much," he said."
Maybe Eliot, a reader who measured out a five gallon bucket of water every for six months as his sole source of water in an effort to prove the water department wrong, wasn't so crazy after all... — BEN POPKEN
