RICHMOND, Va—- A Richmond restaurant owner is calling for accountability after a Department of Public Utilities billing error automatically withdrew roughly $60,000 from her bank account.
Natalie McNamara, CEO of Harry's at Hofheimer, says her normal DPU bill runs less than $2,000. So when she opened her August statement, she was stunned.
"I mean, this is obviously wrong. This is crazy, and it's also gonna take a lot of time to figure out why I got a $58,000 bill," McNamara said.
The situation escalated when the inflated amount was automatically pulled from her account through autopay before the bill was even due.
"I looked at my bank. This is the 60,001 42 is what they took out, but this amount wasn't due until September 2," McNamara said.
The experience left her scrambling.
"I think the part that was most frustrating to me after that was then having to spend the rest of the day figuring out where did that amount come from," McNamara said.
The financial shock hit at the worst possible time.
"I was practically in tears because I just run payroll. I had just paid my credit card. I'd paid all my normal bills that Monday, and then next morning, $60,000 was missing for my account," McNamara said.
McNamara later learned most of the increase was connected to the building's fire line meter, which serves the fire sprinkler system. The bill claimed she used nearly 7 million gallons of water, despite there being no fire or major leak.
After multiple attempts to reach DPU failed, McNamara says she finally got a response from the DPU director after contacting her city council representative.
"I did get an email response from him that was very technical and basically just said it was an error," McNamara said.
DPU corrected the meter data, and McNamara says the $60,000 was returned to her bank account. But the ordeal has taken a toll.
"We just want to run a business and support our staff people, and pay tax dollars, and just do good things, and not get caught up in dealing with the issues. You know that the city really needs to focus on and fix," McNamara said.
Earlier this month, CBS 6 reporter Kelsey Jones sat down with Mayor Danny Avula to talk about ongoing DPU billing issues and his commitment to fixing them. As problems continue, Kelsey reached out to DPU for comment. The department shared this statement:
"As DPU continues to monitor its billing system performance, we are identifying needed adjustments for internal processes including thresholds for manual bill reviews. We also encourage customers to review their upper threshold limits for auto-drafts to ensure it fits their current needs and encourage limits be established that they are comfortable with in advance."
McNamara says she hopes the city can restore confidence. For now, she has removed her DPU account from autopay.
