By Post-Dispatch/KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The Post-Dispatch reports this (Fri.) morning some Metropolitan Sewer District customers have paid their water bills twice or even three times because of a computer glitch.
An agency spokesman says the problem started when a new company took over billing.
Alliance Data Systems, of Dallas, took payments out of people's checking accounts last month, just days after the payments had already been deducted. Then, after it put the money back, it charged customers again for the same payment period.
That left some people temporarily with less money, which caused other checks to bounce and some bank fees to accrue.
More than 16,000 customers were hit with multiple withdrawals.
MSD isn't sending any more bills until the problem is fixed.