Richmond DPU underbilled him, sent an erroneous $11,000 bill, and now wants him to pay up: 'I was mad'

RICHMOND, Va. — A Richmond homeowner is calling for changes to city code after experiencing months of billing problems with the Department of Public Utilities, including an erroneous $11,000 bill.

Martin Lederle-Ensign bought his Highland Park home in May 2020 and says he has paid his utility bills every month since. But this summer, he received a surprising letter from Richmond's Department of Public Utilities telling him he needed to establish service at his address.

"We were really confused because we've been paying utilities for 5 years," Lederle-Ensign said.

A spokesperson for DPU told CBS 6 a team member had mistakenly removed the water meter assignment from the account.

Lederle-Ensign thought the issue had been resolved, but in August he received a bill that was at least $100 more than usual.

After multiple phone calls, he says he finally reached the head of DPU, Scott Morris, who told him he had not been paying all of his utilities for about a year and had only been paying for gas usage.

"He immediately said you have to pay that back," Lederle-Ensign said.

Morris cited city code stating that failure to receive a bill does not exempt a customer from liability for payment. The code also states that correct charges for utilities which have not been billed or have been billed improperly shall be determined at the discretion of the director.

"Do you think that it should be on the customer to make up for an error on the part of the government or a business?” CBS6 reporter Melissa Hipolit asked Lederle-Ensign. "No absolutely not," Lederle-Ensign replied.

Shortly after his conversation with Morris, Lederle-Ensign received a notice stating he owed DPU more than $11,000 by November 5.

"When you saw that what went through your mind?” Hipolit asked. "A lot of bad words I can't say on TV," he said. "I was mad."

He immediately called Morris, who said a field technician made an error while replacing the meter. DPU fixed that bill, but in October, Lederle-Ensign received a new bill totaling more than $3,800.

"I don't know what that is about, nobody at DPU could tell us what that is about," he said.

Lederle-Ensign then met in person with two DPU leaders who told him that amount was not correct and he would ultimately need to pay about $1,200 to make up for services he was not billed for. But he said he's not confident in that number or that the situation has been resolved.

"They both said you have to trust us a lot which made me not trust them," he said.

DPU spokeswoman Rhonda Johnson said the department "remains committed to our customers and accurate billing practices, which is reflected in the quick resolution to the current billing item and the correction in July 2025 for this account to ensure services are accurately being applied to accounts."

The billing issues come after Richmond residents, including Lederle-Ensign, lost water service during the city's water crisis in January. He said the ongoing problems have him and his partner looking at homes in Henrico County.

"We love living in Richmond, we love our neighborhood," he said. "It would be nice to live in a place that has a functioning local government."

Lederle-Ensign plans to bring his concerns to City Council at their meeting on Monday. He hopes they might consider changing city code so customers don't have to retroactively pay for mistakes made by DPU.

"There needs to be big changes," he said.

DPU Communications Team Lead Duriechee Friend "acknowledged the frustration by the customer, the amount charged to the customer represents the volume of water and wastewater consumed by the customer and has been verified as accurate. DPU recognizes the difficulty this may impose and have offered a payment plan to help them pay the charges over the next 12 months, DPU has also removed the base fees during this time when they did not receive a bill for these services, that equates to a reduction of $467.10."

Friend also said “to accurately calculate the consumption during the non-billed period, we reviewed the readings directly from the meter itself. The device continued to register consumption even while unassigned. By comparing January and June readings, we confirmed the total consumption used, ensuring billing accuracy and fairness."

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