Qwest Charges $33 For Doing Absolutely Nothing > hahaha

hahaha

Yup - a 'Sorry, your number is not in our service area.' is what I would have expected from an automated service.
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Canada = Hollywood North

reply to BabyBear

said by BabyBear:

Thats funny, but stuuupid! Obvious it was an automated change & charge. Do they charge you if you paint your house a new color too?

reply to en102

That would have been handled and known about for some time in advance, as would all of the above billing issues. Qwest was just sloppy in handling it.
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Canada = Hollywood North

reply to SilverSurfer1
I scrutinize my bill all the time. This enables me to correct any overcharges/errors in my bill. I even scrutinize my receipt when I go grocery shopping. Many times stores overcharge you. Another thing you need to look at is sales tax. Sometimes, you get charged tax on non-taxable items. So, while you may see this act as someone who "don't have anything better to do but comb through your bills and scrutinize every item", I see it as an act of someone who is smart.

reply to SilverSurfer1

said by SilverSurfer1:

said by BabyBear:

Thats funny, but stuuupid! Obvious it was an automated change & charge. Do they charge you if you paint your house a new color too?

This is SOP billing - if Qworst had pulled this stunt anywhere else (not in bumblefuck nowhere, NE) it most likely would have gone unnoticed. But when you're rural bumpkin, you really don't have anything better to do but comb through your bills and scrutinize every item.

reply to en102
Unless the city specifically contacted the utility, notified them well in advance, setup coordination meetings and all that Jazz they likely weren't warned in advance. If they city is smaller than 100K people and the piece annexed is smaller than 30k the city likely didn't have the experienced staff to make such a pre-notification happen. Relatively small cities have a very small group of city employees that spend more time pushing paper around (building permits etc..) than doing anything else.

Annexing is almost always done to acquire a piece of commercial zoning that is bringing in good sales taxes that the larger city wants to acquire to increase their tax base (as most states divvy the sales tax back to the city where the purchase was made). These decisions are often talked about a long time but are actually executed very quickly. Failing to discuss it with utilities and affected companies is much more common than you probably realize. In fact in cities the size I listed I would wager notifying utilities and having coordination meetings would be the exception, not the rule as most city employees would take the view that the utilities would figure it out on their own.

Now why the city renamed streets should be the real question. If I was the lady I would be mad at Qwest, but I would be almost as mad at the city for renaming streets and messing up the maps billings, driver licenses, credit addresses, mortgages, and just generally making the mail go to the wrong place. Especially if the annexed city is larger than 30k as the renaming and numbering would be so extensive that it would make all GPS maps essentially worthless as well as hosing the post office for a month or two. And as a previous poster said sarcastically, the state utility commission might allow a different rate center on the acquiring city.

Omaha has a population of +400,000... I don't think it would be an issue.
Similarly, Santa Clarita has done many annexations in the past few years (pop 170,000), and I've never heard of this being an issue here. Cities as small as Santa Clarita have their own GIS, departments, etc.
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Canada = Hollywood North