Did you get a late fee on your city water bill? Bradenton may owe you money

The city of Bradenton estimates about 6 percent of water customers were affected by a small glitch in its email billing system causing delayed bills and undeserved late fees.

According to Jeannie Roberts, Bradenton’s public information officer, customers who receive their bills via email may have received their bill more than a week late, causing double billing on the next cycle, resulting in the late fees that were assumed by non payment on the initial bill.

“The delay was due to a change in the city’s mail security platform that caused those bills to be initially falsely identified as spam and, as a result, delayed,” Roberts said. “When the problem was identified, it was immediately rectified. It’s estimated that only about 6 percent of the city’s utility accounts were potentially impacted.”

The city will reimburse any undue late fees incurred, but only on a case-by-case basis. If you believe your bill was erroneously affected by the problem, contact utilities customer service at 941-932-9434 or email help.utilities@cityofbradenton.com.

“We take customer service very seriously, and we want our customers to have confidence in our billing system, email or otherwise,” said Lance Williams, customer service manager. “This was an isolated issue that has been corrected.”