Some Medford utility customers billed twice in error

Medford, Ore., — “It could escalate into a lot of problems for people on fixed incomes, such as myself.”

Lona Wright is a senior citizen on social security.

She has no internet, no cell phone and still pays most of her bills with checks.

But when the city of Medford gave the option to put her utility bill on autopay, she thought why not.

“This was my first attempt at anything auto, I thought you know, this is a cool thing they’re offering.” said Wright.

Wright says she hasn’t had an issue in the last two years of using auto pay.

But this month, something went wrong.

“When I got home I checked it, and sure enough, an extra payment of 45.92 was taken out of my checking account.” said Wright.

The city of Medford says the company it’s contracted with, Selectron, took down the autopay system for an update.

In the process, some auto pay customers were double charged.

A customer service employee told customers, the money was refunded Monday, and should show up in bank accounts later this week.

Wright says waiting for the money to come back is frustrating.

“I can’t touch anything in my account until this is taken care of.”

And the error has made Wright nervous to ever use auto pay again.

“When I get where I cannot handle my own finances anymore, it would be nice to have something like this offered to you, but no, I can’t trust them. I can’t do it.”

Medford Public Works Director, Cory Crebbin says the city – quote- “regrets the considerable inconvenience this has caused our affected customers, and we are working with the vendor to ensure such occurrences are not repeated in the future”

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