Pikitup mystery continues
IT appears a pattern is emerging as more 'Default Accounts Club' members step forward, claiming they too have received mysterious bills from Pikitup, sent to their addresses but marked to the attention of 'The Default Owner'.
Two more residents have approached the Chronicle, saying they too were receiving Pikitup bills addressed to ‘The Default Owner’, for bins they did not own.
Inanda resident Gabby Latter said she had been receiving ‘The Default Owner’ bills since August last year, and Hyde Park resident, Sheila Borsook, since November last year.
The first resident to express her concerns to the Chronicle was Inanda resident, Jean Allen. Allen was curious about a series of Pikitup bills which had first arrived in her residential mailbox in September last year. They were addressed to ‘The Default Owner’. Next to contact the Chronicle was Bruce and his wife Margot Weedon, who like Allen, started receiving accounts to ‘The Default Owner’ in September last year. Illovo resident, Tim Sewell, dubbed the group ‘The Default Accounts Club’: he was the third person to speak out about the incorrect billing he had received from the service provider since last September.
Latter wrote in a letter to the Chronicle: “I live in the same road as Margot and Bruce Weedon. I have been receiving these invoices since August 2012. While I was given a reference number for my logged concerns, I continue to receive invoices. The only change has been that I have been issued with some credits so my bill has been reduced from R8 173 to my current balance of R1 902. I have tried to follow up on a few occasions but am not able to get through on the 0860 56 28 74 number.”
Borsook said, “Since receiving the bills, I have approached the municipal offices in Randburg for assistance, as well as the local council. I have also called Pikitup and received two reference numbers. Still, nothing has been done. The envelope containing the account has an address at the back of it. Maybe I should write to them?”
Sewell added, “I speculate this is a computer processing type of fault where someone has pressed the wrong button and done something like a copy and paste by mistake. With the number of people who have come forward, it seems unlikely to be a number of separate manual entries, but who knows?”
To date, Pikitup has not yet commented on the growing billing mystery.
