When Candace Kimble received her water bill this month, she couldn't believe her eyes.
The single mother, who lives on Maxwell Street in Charleston's East End, said she almost had a heart attack when she was confronted with the $872 monthly statement.
She didn't understand how she and her two small children could waste more than 20 times the normal amount of water they use in a normal month.
When she called West Virginia American Water to ask if the bill was a mistake, she was told it was not, and company officials informed her that she could set up a payment plan to pay off the charges.
"I was at work and I started crying because there would be no way for me to pay a bill like this," Kimble said. "I barely make it as it is with no help from anyone. I stress out every winter because of my heating bill, and I try to save up throughout the year for that, but I was not prepared for this."
Kimble is one of a reported 361 American Water customers on Charleston's East End who were presented with inflated bills this month.
According to a letter sent to those customers by American Water, a problem occurred while company employees were uploading the customers' meter readings.
The letter states that an additional zero was added to the actual amount of water the customers used that month. For instance, if a customer used 650 gallons of water, they were charged for 6,500 gallons. If they used 3,000 gallons of water they were billed for 30,000 gallons.
According to the letter, the billing mistake affected only one meter reading route on the East End, and company officials say that the problem was recognized quickly and fixed.
"We apologize for the inconvenience and have taken steps to ensure that this will not occur on any future bills," the letter states.
But the entire situation has many of the affected customers wondering how a billing mistake of that size was not caught by the company earlier.
Dave Thomas, another Maxwell Street resident, said he is frustrated that the company didn't recognize that an entire region of the city had bills that were 18 to 20 times higher their normal monthly statements.
"I think there should have been some sort of quality control process that should have caught this error before the bills went out," said Thomas, who received a bill for $451. "I'm sure there were some people extremely worried people over the weekend, especially older people living alone on a small pension."
According to the company's letter, any customer who has received an incorrect bill should wait for a revised statement to be sent to them. It also states that no late fees would be assessed.
But for people who already paid their bills or for others who had money directly deposited from their checking accounts, the letter states that they will be reimbursed in company credits on future bills, instead of cash returns.
Kimble, the mother of two, said she had not paid the inflated bill, but if she had, the bill total would have included more than a year and a half of payments to the water company.
"That would have been a huge headache," she said.
Reach Andrew Brown at andrew.brown@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814, or follow @Andy_Ed_Brown on Twitter.