Complaint Review: SIERRA SPRINGS WATER

I closed my water account in Fall 2000 (after 3 weeks of trying to get Sierra Springs to deliver water to me, unsuccessfully). I had been a customer of Hinckley & Schmitt's since 1993, but when they were bought by Sierra, I started having nothing but problems so I decided to go with another company. I paid my final bill and notified Sierra to come pick up the equipment. Instead, they showed up unannounced (of course, cooler wasn't outside waiting) and left me 2 more bottles! I tried for several more weeks to get them to pick up the cooler, and out of frustration I sent them a CERTIFIED letter, advising them that if they didn't pick up the cooler within a week, I was going to consider it abandoned and sell it. I finally got a call from a field manager who told me to leave it out front and he would have someone come get the two unused bottles and the cooler (this was in Spring 2001...nearly 3 months after I closed my account)!

I thought that was the end of it, until Feb 2002, when I received a letter from a collections agency saying that I owed them $350 for a "stolen" cooler and a year of cooler rental fees!!! I called the collections agency and they said I had FIVE HOURS to find a copy of the receipt that I should have been given at the time of the cooler pickup a YEAR earlier! I told them I would not still have a receipt after that amount of time, and Sierra Springs should have told me within 30 days of me closing my account if they had a problem with my account (I have never received a bill or phone call from them since the cooler was picked up a year ago). The collections company gave me the name and extention of someone who they said could look up my records, but when I called it, there was a generic voicemail greeting and no name. I left a message anyway, but never got a callback.