coredenale t1_irtaqru wrote on October 10, 2022 at 9:41 PM

I've wondered this as well.

Honestly though, while I love that for my other bills, Baltimore has a pretty bad track record.

I constantly hear stories of water bills being insanely high. That alone is not always a big deal, as that can be legit, but when it happens, it would make sense for the city to reach out to confirm, or at least give a heads up. Instead, the city appears to 100% rely on owners to catch any issues with their bill.

On top of that, the city recently got hacked.

It just seems like a bad idea to trust the city with auto-billing, which really should not be the case.

Opposite_Selection_3 OP t1_irthosd wrote on October 10, 2022 at 10:32 PM

I am not saying as a consumer this is the best option but as a City badly wanting to increase collections this seems like a no brainer.

Angdrambor t1_irw3bza wrote on October 11, 2022 at 2:08 PM

>as a City badly wanting to increase collections this seems like a no brainer.

Absolutely not. The cost of lawsuits when your software malfunctions and fucks someone over is going to drastically outweigh any possible collections.

coredenale t1_irtipr2 wrote on October 10, 2022 at 10:40 PM

Agreed.

MattDaCatt t1_irxqku9 wrote on October 11, 2022 at 8:35 PM

Unless my water main breaks and I'm out $2000 due to auto billing, rather than being able to have it corrected first.

Also I don't trust BCIT to contract a developer to make the system not save my PIDs in an open format. I was contracted on the ransomware cleanup project and it was a shitshow