Fathom Water Utility and Billing (Haltom City, Copperas Cove: credit, bills, suite)

[TRex2]

Anybody have any stories about Fathom, the company who says they have "proven integrated suite of advanced technology products."

Wonder what they are proven to do, other than infuriate customers through their incompetence?

[TRex2]

Fathom has had a contract with the water utility for more than a year now, and things seem to be getting worse. Some say that the number of complaints is decreasing, but that may be people just being resigned to the idea of being screwed.

https://www.coveleaderpress.com/news...hom-transition

Simons also said FATHOM was “a little overwhelmed at the start over people calling to get their new account numbers, people wanting to get seasonal turn-ons and people wanting to get general information. It was a perfect storm.” Simons anticipated it would take about six months to get things running as smoothly as the city would like them to run.

Chris Drews, publisher of the Zephyrhills Free Press, told the Leader-Press on Tuesday that the main issue he saw in his community, which has a large older population, was accounts being turned off because mailed-in payments sent from Florida weren’t received in Arizona in time.

This isn't a transitional issue any more, since they have been mishandling billing for more than a year, and are still turning people's water off due to their own systems telling them that bills are over due when in fact, they were paid.

Checking the BBB website, I see a complaint from Haltom City TX, and "THIS BUSINESS IS NOT BBB ACCREDITED"

At The Glass Door (a site that tells prospective employees what it is like to work there)
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/FA...ws-E802638.htm
someone wrote the following on 24 jan 2018

I worked at FATHOM full-time (Less than a year)

Pros

Excellent concept in a market with no competition. Great ideas. Friendly work culture. Decent pay and benefits. Not much else.

Cons

Horroble operations. Cannot serve customers. Bad management that commit to employees or to needed changes to grow the business. Notice most don't stay a year

Advice to Management

Get new management with a clue.

Cannot serve Customers. Now, THAT sounds like what the customers in Copperas Cove are complaining about.

[lilly2874]

Fathom is a fraudulent company that keeps slithering their way into city after city angering residents because they're overcharging them for water. Apparently, every resident of every city they go in to "help" has a water leak and consumes thousands of gallons more than they were aware of. Anyone else see an issue with this?

[TRex2]

A little more info regarding Fathom water supply corp.

A review was recently done on their contract signed by a city government.

Some things should have raised Red Flags!

The company has become infamous for double billing, delayed billing,
and wrongful disconnects, all of which result in calls to their call center.

Monthly call volume is set on a % of total meters, so any calls to them
in excess of 1370 per month is billed to Cove at $10 per call!!!!

Fathom cannot be penalized for billing errors.

So, basically the make a profit on causing problems.

[TRex2]

It was recently discovered (by someone who got stung by this) that a $30 fee is attached to your payment if payment is returned by the bank for any reason, including Fathom entering the wrong data, and thus attempting to draw the money from the wrong bank. They make the mistake, and the customer has to pay the penalty.

At least that is how we (and, apparently, the city government) are reading it.