Odds and Ends - Your Money Edition

CMUD - Despite all the concern over the Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities Department (CMUD) and their failing meter reading operation not much has improved. For example the meter at my home was read on January 30, 2012 but the bill wasn't produced until February 20, and didn't show up at my house until February 25th. Further the bill isn't due until March 13th.

Of course much on the delay is because the people who read the meter and supply and service are not the same people who convert the readings into billable numbers and produce the bills. The job falls to the city's billing department. 

The job is complicated by CMUD's matrix like billing structure that seeks to subsidize low income residents at the expense of those who water lawns and have clean clothes. Additionally it is further complicated by the "storm water" tax....errrr fee.

And the fact that the billing cycle is on some sort of random cycle. Sometimes it is 30 days, others 34 and still others 23 days. All I can figure it is on some sort of "load/yield" computer program that seeks to maximize the pain to taxpayers.

Think about it, On January 1st my home took water and I didn't have to pay for it until the 13th of March, that's a free ride for get this, 72 days. That is nuts, just think of the revenue increase if the City could cut that time down by just 10%.

Time Warner Cable - Quietly without much notice your cable bill is going up. Some services are going to increase by 25% on March 1st.

Nothing grinds my gears worse than on one of the few occarsions I turn on the 60 inch flat screen to watch something and I get nothing. Time Warner Cable tells me that if I don't turn on my televison at least once every day I miss certian software upgrades to my cable box. Apparently this is a almost daily event. So when I turn on the box it has to load and install all the latest and greatest improvemtns.

My arguement with Time Warner Cable is that all month long I pay for service I don't use, therefore when I do turn on my televison and I get nothing but FAIL they should refund my entire month's bill. Afterall I am not paying to watch as much as I am paying for it to be there when I want to watch.

When I explain that because of their cable box I missed the final ten minutes of the Daytona 500 the rep suggests that I use the "on demand" feature and pretend I didn't already know Jimmy Johnson has won.