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Garbage service to stop; bills still coming

Waste Management apologizes for sending bills to 9,000 customers who will lose their trash collection service Monday.

By DAVID DeCAMP
Published December 28, 2006

Waste Management is again saying sorry to Pasco County, this time 9,000 times over.

Over the holiday weekend, the garbage hauler mistakenly sent bills for advance payments to 9,000 residential customers it intends to cut after Jan. 1 - many still smarting with the first bad news.

With county staffers prodding, Waste Management made automated calls Wednesday alerting all the customers to ignore the notices. The company also boosted its customer service staff.

"What kind of planning is this?" customer Jim Kay in the Turtle Lakes neighborhood said Wednesday. He got the bill before he even had a new hauler.

Kay and others were left in a billing database when statements were printed, company spokesman Liz Johnson said.

"Don't pay any bill dated after Jan. 1," Johnson said.

The mixup left county officials baffled how an already difficult situation continues to spiral down.

Angry over Waste Management's announcement in late November that 17,000 customers would be dropped, County commissioners delayed renewing the company's hauling permit for 2007. The board approved the permit Dec. 19 after being reassured plans were set to switch affected customers to new haulers.

"We thought we had all this resolved," said commission Chairwoman Ann Hildebrand, who called the trouble disconcerting, especially with trash piling up during the holidays.

The affected customers live north of State Road 52 and east of the Suncoast Parkway. Waste Management wants to reduce routes to serve more densely populated areas, saving money.

Waste Services of Florida and Central Carting Disposal are supposed to pick up many of the dropped customers. Waste Express will pick up a small fraction, and customers also can sign up with another approved hauler.

If misbegotten billing wasn't enough, the changeover has been muddied because some of the new haulers don't have a large enough staff or the computer software to handle the surge of customers, Assistant County Administrator Dan Johnson said.

Waste Management is taking customers' information over a hotline and providing it to the new haulers, Johnson said. Six more people were added Wednesday to handle calls.

Waste Management officials have promised that customers who have not changed haulers after Jan. 1 will not lose service. Payments for services after the cutoff date will be refunded. But customers are urged to inform the company they need service via the hotline.

Waste Management is stopping service Jan. 1 for customers north of State Road 52 and the Suncoast Parkway in Pasco County. Affected residents should receive letters notifying them of the change and their new hauler.

Customers with questions should call a Waste Management hotline, (866) 773-5648. New service can be handled, and questions can be answered.

[Last modified December 27, 2006, 23:50:22]