April Bingham is proud of the progress the Richmond Department of Public Utilities has made in clearing a backlog of customer service issues.

Ms. Bingham, director of the department, told City Council earlier this month the addition of temporary workers has enabled the department to clear a backlog of 20,000 complaints since March of 2023.

That progress includes fixing more than 7,000 leaking meter and more than 7,000 billing errors, she said.

Ms. Bingham said the department also has been able to field more people to read meters and dramatically reduced the number of bills based on estimates of water and natural gas use.

An audit last year found that 15% of meters were being estimated.

Now, Ms. Bingham said 98% of water meters and 99.5% of gas meters are being physically read monthly.

However, the flood of calls to the department has continued, overwhelming the call center and billing offices, Ms. Bingham acknowledged. In 2023, she said the department received 261,000 calls – an average of 1200 a day.

Frustrated Richmond residents have turned to social media to report receiving a huge bill and to tell about their difficulties in reaching someone for an explanation.

Brenda Trent reported on Nextdoor.com that she has been fighting since November to get DPU to correct a $1,400 bill she regards as erroneous .

Hilda Braswell in the Bellevue neighborhood also is disputing a $1,000 bill. She wrote a post on the site, “I’ve submitted my claim, and other than a number assigned to the case, I’ve heard nothing from them.”

That’s also the case for Lauren O. O’Leary of the Stratford Hills neighborhood “Well, we just received one of those shocking $2,000 plus water bills for one month,” she wrote. “That’s what our family uses in one year and a half.”

In a complaint familiar to many, she added that she tried to call to find out why the bill was so large,“but no one picks up the phone down there.”

Ms. Bingham told council members that customers on average have to wait 30 minutes or more to get through.

Reports of waits of 90 minutes or more are not unusual, according to 8th District Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell.

Ms. Bingham said that she soon hopes to provide customers with an online tool that would allow them to look up their accounts.

But that may not help those seeking explanations or trying to appeal huge bills that are regarded as inaccurate.

Ms. Trammell recently fought to get utilities restored for two elderly constituents who had received bills for more than $5,000 and had nowhere else to turn.

But almost every day, Ms. Trammell said she receives calls and pleas for help from constituents like Lynwood Jones, who has been confronted with a $4,000 utility bill for one month.

Ms. Bingham said the computer system is supposed to flag huge bills to people who allegedly have boosted usage 200 percent or more above their previous norms, but the posts suggest that it can take weeks or even longer to hear from DPU.

One reason is that DPU is still struggling to collect from delinquent customers. Of the estimated 70,000 customers, 26,000 or 37 percent are delinquent and fewer than 10,000 are on payment plans, Ms. Bingham noted.

That makes it harder for people like Robinette D. Winn.

Ms. Winn, a disabled private duty nurse, has lived in the same apartment on Stockton Street for 41 years and has paidher monthly utility bill like clockwork each month, according to her records.

So she was shocked when she received her December 2023 bill that was dated July 18, 2022, and stated that she owed $163.32.

Ms. Winn, 60, said she was upset because she already had paid the July 2022 bill, but still went ahead and paid it.

Then she got her January 2024 bill that showed she had paid the previous balance

of $97.26 that was on the December bill she never got, but still owed $109.23.

The DPU bill, which she provided to the Free Press, does not reflect a credit of $66.06 she is due for paying $163.32,

the remaining amount after she paid the $97.26 due for December.

“It’s just crazy,” Ms. Mines said. “I called but I couldn’t get through. I got double-billed and now they won’t show that I made a larger payment than I needed to. What did I do to them that they would do this to me?”