WARNING

Are you a customer of City of Lake Worth Utilities? Have you had your electric or water shut off for non-payment and been charged a $35.00 to $70.00 Reconnect fee?

Do you know that when you send your payment using the enclosed envelope that it goes to an address in Tampa Florida some 200 plus miles away?

In fact the City of Lake Worth wants you to send your payment to P O Box 30552, Tampa, Florida 33630-3552!

It appears that by mailing your payments to the Tampa address, it may take up to an additional week for you payment to be processed and posted to your account.  This delay in payment processing has helped the City of Lake Worth Water Utilities generate additional monies by disconnecting services, charging its customers late fees, and requiring additional deposits.

After years of making your payments locally to locally employed personel, they now outsource this job to employees in another city in another county. With so many Lake Worth residents looking for work, we should be employing people locally which in turns helps local business.

If you receive a past due notice stating when to remit your payment, do not be fooled. Your payment if remitted to the Tampa address would need to be submitted at least 7 or more days before the date that they tell you to submit payment by.

If you have had your utilities turned off and believe that this may have happened to you, please send us an email.

In todays challenging economic environment it is just down right wrong for a public utility to use such tactics.

This consumer warning message has been brought to you by LakeWorthCity.com in partnership with Home Owners For A Better Community.