Call to newsroom helped resolve woman’s leaky problem
In addition to bringing you the latest news and sports from your community, our goal as a local newspaper is to help those who need it.
Such was the case Friday when a Connoquenessing Township woman called the Eagle newsroom to express her frustration with her attempts to get a water shut-off valve that began leaking in her basement a few weeks ago repaired.
The woman had to empty a five-gallon bucket under the leak every 90 minutes, which was a problem at night. She said the leak would have been an easy fix for her late husband and feared if not repaired, the valve would completely fail and flood her basement.
She has been paying $9.99 per month for a protection program that would repair water equipment, but learned the program is the responsibility of a third-party vendor, not the water company.
She said customer service representatives at the company call centers she reached out to were difficult to understand, but eventually understood them well enough to hear that a repair person would call before coming to her home to fix the valve.
No one called.
After multiple futile attempts to resolve the issue and feeling she had nowhere to turn, she called the Eagle.
Reporter Paula Grubbs was assigned the story, and through her dogged determination and many phone calls, eventually put the woman in touch with a representative of the water company who called her Friday afternoon to say she would be reimbursed the $140 she spent on repairs and that a repair person would be dispatched to fix her valve.
He explained that call centers sometimes are third-party vendors in other countries, and their customer representatives can be difficult to understand.
Although we often publish news that can be unpleasant to some, it gives us a good feeling when we are able to help solve a problem for a reader who feels they are stymied in their search for a solution.
We are more than Butler County’s premier source for local, news, sports and obituaries. We are here to help, if we are able to. It’s our commitment to serve the community in any way we can.
– JGG
