Richmond restaurant owner hit with $58,000 water bill

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - A Richmond restaurant owner said she was billed $58,000 for water usage in July, a 3,500% increase over her typical bill.

Nearly $60,000 was withdrawn from her checking account through autopay before the transaction was stopped.

Natalie McNamara co-owns Harry’s at Hofheimer, located inside the historic Hofheimer Building in Scott’s Addition.

McNamara said she woke up Monday morning to find $60,000 had been taken out of her checking account.

“Then I woke up Monday morning and $60,000 was taken out of my checking account,” McNamara said.

McNamara said her utility bill is normally between $1,500 and $1,800 a month. She said the bill is on autopay.

“Then I got hit with a $58,000 bill,” McNamara said. “I can’t just be expected to be hit with a $58,000 bill when I budget for 1600. That’s kind of like your landlord saying, hey, your rent is 5000, but oh, this month it’s going to be 65,000. We can’t operate businesses like that.”

When McNamara couldn’t reach the Department of Public Utilities by phone, she began comparing the current bill to her previous water bills. She found a number listed next to “water meter fireline” that showed DPU billed her for using 9,989.83 CCF, which translates to nearly 7 million gallons of water.

“They said, well, there must be a leak. And I said, and there’s not a 7.7 million gallon leak. I’m so sorry. That’s that’s not right. So they just said it’s under investigation until they figure out what happened. And I said, that’s cool,” McNamara said. “I just need my money back. You figure out what the problem is.”

McNamara said DPU also told her they couldn’t verify her account, saying the name of the previous business owner from six years ago was still listed, and hers was not.

“So at that point I started crying and I said, listen, I really need your help. I normally have a bill of $1,600 a month,” McNamara said. “I have a bill of 58,000 from July, and y’all just took $60,000. And I’m a checking account this morning, and I have to pay payroll and pay my other bills, and I don’t know what to do.”

McNamara reached out to the 12 On Your Side Investigators for help.

When the 12 On Your Side Investigators reached out to DPU about the bill, DPU said her account was corrected.

McNamara said her bank was able to stop the auto-draft and return the money.

McNamara said she hopes DPU’s mistake can be a teachable moment for others.

“I do want to be a voice, and I do want to advocate for other business owners specifically, or the residents that have been going through the same problem,” McNamara said. “Unfortunately, a lot of business owners do not have the bandwidth to investigate this, and sometimes they just pay it because they don’t have the time to fight it or investigate it. And that’s really unfortunate. And it feels like people get taken advantage of and they just pay it because they don’t they don’t have it in them to pay it.”

Richmond’s DPU has been updating the 12 On Your Side Investigators on the billing issues. It is also providing updates online.