Irvine Ranch Water District

We watch the water usage in our home and it’s only a few bucks a month for that so that’s fine but what I have a problem with is the fact they charge outrageous service fees. To anyone considering buying a home in the same district as this company serves don’t because you will be stuck being robbed every month with these crazy fees. They need a different system for determining how much low water wasters need to be penalized for sewage fees. If I barely use water then why do they assume I’m contributing to such a high portion of the sewage needing to be taken care of. Basically like the last poster said, don’t watch your water usage it doesn’t matter anyways so use just below what your allowance is and that’s it because either way your service fees are outrageous. Stop making up excuses for why these fees are astronomical and start lowering people’s bill every month to what they actually use and contribute to so they don’t feel like they are being held hostage for fees they shouldn’t have to pay!

My regular monthly water usage is about 20CCF, which comes to $ 50−60/month. Between July and August my bill was $ 389 for 40 CCF. 22CCF was listed as ‘wasteful’. WTF!
When I first call them back in Sep they told me that they were just going by the meter blah blah blah and would send someone to re-​read the meter. There was no usage surge on our part and no leak found in sprinkler system. They left a note on my door saying the meter was telling the truth.
I learned today that quite a few neighbors had similar issues. So I called irwd again to ask for explanation. Without hesitation the billing department offered a one-​time credit. Obviously something went wrong with they meter/​billing system. She couldn’t tell me the amount of the credit and I’ll have to wait. I hope it is the full amount sans my monthly average. Otherwise, I will have to write to the pub utilities commission for a serious review.
And yes, what’s with the $ 35 service charge? On a second thought I would write to the pub utilities commission regardless. WTF.

We just had a very positive experience with Janet at the IRWD regarding the SoCalWater$mart rebate program.
Although, the program is administered by the state and not the IRWD, she took it upon herself to call them to follow up on our rebate application. She later called me and provided clear explanation on the status of our application.
It was the best support I have received from any government agency. Thank you very much, Janet, for the truly exceptional service!

Pretty much like any government agency out there, mainly due to their billing lunacy and terrible customer service.
My first experience was in September this year, when I called them because I was moving. I was told I had to start a new account with IRWD, because having lived only in megalopolis apartment buildings, and paying for water, I’d technically never had my own account with them. I went to their website for more information, then called. They of course «had» to charge me $ 25 to set up an account (NOT a deposit, they will argue with you all day long). And the worst part is, if you ever move you now have to go through this silly process and worthless charges all over again, even if you are just transferring service. This is for the utility bill that people get every month but is basically an afterthought and the last one they ever care about (besides trash).
So I called and the customer service was «meh» at first. They told me a few days in the future they could transfer this service into my name, I said fine since I was planning ahead, it wasn’t really an issue. I had a bit of a «discussion» over the $ 25 fee because I wasn’t a fan, and their website had some misleading information about it, so I sent them a special form to avoid this billing, they said this doesn’t apply to me. OK, waste of my time but whatever. Moving on… she said OK here’s your account number «81 932 475 981». Me (wrote it down but…), «Can you email this confirmation to me?» Them «no we don’t do that». I got an email a week later with the information, which wasn’t very timely because I already had to forward it to my landlord to prove I’ve transferred the service into my name.
Fast forward to October,
I used 1 CCF (cubic feet x 100) of water, which is a tiny bit more than zero, which is because they don’t actually do decimal billing. WTF? They could easily bill you in gallons or CF for actual usage, but choose not to in favor of some confounded rounding system. I also got charged a late fee of $ 2.87 tacked on to my $ 25.00 signup fee, even though I never got a bill for that. (This is my first actual bill, I’m reading).
Finally I’m using ¹⁄₁₀^th of my «Water Conservation Goal» shown on my bill (a grand total of $ 1.11 of water from my tap) and being charged nearly $ 40 a month. Clearly the lesson is, don’t bother caring about water conservation, it won’t make a difference anyway. And if you never use ANY water, you’ll still owe them $ 35, twelve times a year. HUH.
Their billing periods are such that you only get 2 weeks to pay your bill — then they’ll ding you. HUH.
By the way if you want to pay your bill by credit card it’ll cost you an additional $ 3.25. Why? What year is it? How else do they expect people to pay? I’m sorry I’ve ever had to deal with these people, and so will you.

Apparently the Irvine Ranch Water District is deciding to monopolize just as the Irvine Co. has. Since they’ve decided to hike fees to make up for the lost revenue due to us being diligent citizens and lessening our water use, they DOUBLED our bill. W.T.F. My parents living in Yorba Linda and have over ½ an acre. We have a fraction of that and our water bill is costing the same.

The water comes out of the faucet when we turn it on, but that’s about all that can be said positively about IRWD. Next to impossible to get customer service reps on the phone, nobody able to clearly explain billing charges. Had a previous payment that was not posted to the account due to poor communication with their 3^rd party billing service. Perhaps its time to get quality management into this organization.

Obviously I appreciate getting clean water in my home and sewage taken out. Thanks for doing that part correctly. I am frustrated with the customer service aspect of your company so far. Due to recent rate changes, it looks like we got double billed. According to your website, it’s not duplicate billing. But I had $ 40 due and exactly one week later, I had a bill for another $ 50. That seems drastic and I wanted to get clarification on my bill before I paid it.
Clearly, I was not the only one confused because when I called, your system just said it was experiencing a high volume of calls and hung up on me. It did that twice. So I tried again the next day and this time I was in the queue but had 25 callers ahead of me. After waiting on speaker phone for 10 minutes, I decided to leave a message. When I attempted to do so, it dropped my call again instead of transferring me. Very frustrating to have my time wasted.
I tried calling again today and the phone just rang and rang. I’ve never heard a live person. It finally went to the automated system and I pressed 2 for billing. Unfortunately the mailbox is full and cannot receive any new messages. Another dead end.
If you are going to drastically hike your rates or if your bills are going to confuse your customers, then you should have the infrastructure to handle the calls and questions. It would be good business to keep your customers happy and informed. Maybe because you don’t have any competition and we have to get our water through you, you don’t care as a corporation how you appear to consumers.
I sent an email to customer service today asking for a call. It’s says to allow up to 3 business days. We’ll see if/​when I get a call.
Update: They called me back right away and explained that the second bill I was receiving for $ 50 was including the rate change. I had already paid the first bill online but my second statement had been generated before I made the payment. So instead of paying an additional 50 bucks, I only need to pay the difference between the 50 and 40 bills. I’m rounding numbers, so the difference was actually only 8 bucks. Much more reasonable than 50!
I feel better, but still wish that had been made more clear. Based on how swamped their call center was, I was not the only one in a panic.

I am writing this review while on hold trying to reach them by phone. I left a message yesterday. Of course, no callback.

My typical water bill for the year 2015 is an average of $ 45 with about $ 9 — $ 12 on water usage charges. The other $ 35 — $ 38 is for service charges. After making several attempts at calling customer service, no one was able to explain to me why these charges are so high but to say that they are charging low service charges. Why punish low water users with such a ridiculously high charge? Regardless, this is something we can’t avoid and simply just have to pay since we have no other choice for water providers.

After calling the IRWD back a 2^nd time to discuss further, Loraine was able to do the research and realize that the payment processing system was indeed flawed and corrected my bill to what I believed was fair. Thank you Loraine for taking the extra time with me.
Previous– The IRWD needs to update their payment processing system. We got charge around $ 100 in fees because they didn’t know something wasn’t processed in till 6 months later! Make sure you call and confirm your payments have been processed! Don’t trust the online system.

I recently installed a replacement soft water appliance. I called IRWD to determine the current hardness of their water, needed to accurately set the water softener’s regeneration schedule. The response, «Did you read the online water report?» Yes, and I did find every piece of analysis, except what I need. Customer Services exact response:. «Well yes because we don’t like helping water softener owners. »

My water bill always get paid in timely manner every month. But they always add extra late fees of $ 3 or so. They don’t waive fees — keep cheating me. The bill comes in the mail or email. I need few days to pay it. The customer service is horrible. After holding for 11 minutes, they don’t waive late fees.

Thanks for making that great trail over by Quail Hill. My dogs and I love it!!!

MCAS El Toro closed because it constituted as a major environmental disaster (EPA superfund site)…60 years of toxic waste dumping into drains (into groundwater) especially the usage of TCE as an aircraft degreaser. Lennar and the Irvine Company turned it into a park without cleaning it up.
Those chemicals have now made it into the groundwater, specifically the area under IRWD control. The company sells tainted water at extraordinary prices.

I’m so glad I’m the first to rate you, IRWD.
My usage would come out to $ 3.34 a month on average, but I sure love paying an $ 8.00 «water service charge,» and a $ 16.00 «sewer service charge,» every month. These charges are basically the equivalent of a couple «get bent» charges that you lovingly hand down to your consumers… and of course, they have no choice but to pay you.
These two charges hike my bill into the $ 30 range, every month. To make matters worse, your new website kinda stinks, you didn’t take credit or debit cards through my tenure in Irvine (just bank accts), and your customer service closes at 5pm daily, so if we want to figure something out or contest a bill, we have to take time off during work hours to do so (lame). Usually when I did call, it was a one or two person operation, so the hold times were pretty bad… especially if on a cell during peak hour.
Whenever I’d see one of those signs that bear your name on the street during the city voting season, I’d always have my pet pitbull, Bootsy, piss all over them, and praise him lovingly when he did. I would’ve taken a picture and mailed it to you, but my camera phone has no flash and it was nighttime…
Just another Irvine monopoly with manufactured charges, bent on taking the honest consumers’ hard-​earned dollar. Entities like you are just another reason I moved out of that city — fast!