SimpleBills
Reviews and Complaints

I would like to address your attention that I’m receiving numerous unknown demand of simple bills telling me to pay.

Firstly, I did not sign up for simple bills. I lived in Canada.

Secondly, I don’t have any knowledge about this company.

Thirdly, please stop emailing me regarding this bills that I have not lived nor have used any of your services that I’m not aware of.

I wish not to receive any emails from yo this any demand of whatever it may have may have caused this demand.

Thank you.

Mrs Rondez

I have paid my bill around the 12th of every month since being forced by the rental company to use simple bills, then a couple of months ago the due date was changed to the first of the month, without notice. I have asked it to be changed back, but of course I'm told thst can't be done and the blame is put on the utility companies, saying they changed their date of submitting the bill. I don't want to pay my bill late every month! At the very least a grace period should be offered. This is unethical. I am trying to do the right thing and simple bills won't even try to work with me

This company teams up with various student properties. There policies and procedures are forced upon the residents and heavily favor the property and Simple Bills. They take advantage of the students/residents and charge them more money than is needed. Upon the end of the lease, they estimate the final charges with a formula that overcharges the expected utilities and force the residents to pay months in advance. Then, if the resident(s) want to get a refund for the amount overcharged, they charge a service fees to the resident and say it will take 3-4 months to get your money back

Overall, very shady business practices that are unethical and may even violate fair trade acts.

8/1/2023-Simply Bills is charging students $65 per year to have a serveice the Standard Apartments in Philadelphia are forcing the students to use. I also asked ofr a manager and was told they will tell me the same thing. I asked a gain and was told we would have to set up a call and find one for me. Are you kidding >>> I From what I am readI called the standard and they refused ot give me the coproate phone number. Very rude apartment manager. I had to call another property t get the phone number. The standard signed the contract with simply bills but is not paying the fees. They are making over $195K in fees alone for one apartment complex in Phialdelphia. They are a scam. The students are all college students with student loans so they are tacking on more fees to make them waste more student laon money. The standard has multiple properties they ar emaking a kiling on all the students that live there.

This has to be illegal the way they are charging people. I have been paying on time every bill and now I was sent a bill twice as much with double of the same exact utilities that they FORGOT to add to my previous bill. This place is so unorganized and upsetting to treat customers like this. They will give me a 6 day extension, really? What a stupid obligation from rental places. Horrible company, I hope you file for bankruptcy soon with the amount of people suing you. I’ll be contacting an attorney myself.

Hi, this is Michael Brumbaugh in Yugo Fort Wayne Arch Room 102

Last month in February I paid $148.60 on the electricity bill on my account and this month it what me to pay $166.39 and I just find out my roommate Jacob Niblick has not paid in February & this coming January, we so supposed to split the bill but somehow it went through my account and it what's me to pay 100% of the bill and he also told me he have not received any Bill to his Simplebills account.

From September to November my annual electricity monthly bills are below 35$ and we always put the HVAC below than 75 temperature.

I have been billed $ 450+ for the month of November 2022 in Station 42 , Tampa which is usually around 170 dollars. This month in December the bills is already 250+ dollars(15 days only) and they are simply ignoring calls for weeks at a time. Its a student community where everything is tight and I have been living here for years. Everr since simple bills have taken over mysteriously all the bills have started going up 100-150% on a month-to-month basis. And when I checked on their review it looks like they are doing it for years to others! How come simple bills are still in the business with the reputation of a scammer?!

The building I live in is The Standard at Berkeley in California. It opened in August 2021. Before I signed the lease Landmarks Regional manager told me via email that water snd sewage were billed by a third party SimpleBills. She also said I could apply for discounted rates and subsidies from the utilitiy provider EBMUD. I was then billed by the property directly to my rent. 4 charges for water and sewage plus a service fee. And no I was not able to apply for discounts or help through anyone especially EBMUD.

Because there is only one meter for the entire 8 story apartment building and its 4 retail spots.

When I questioned the landlord about their billings, we all recieved two emails. One stating SimpleBills was our biller and to sign up for their service to recieve bills and usage.

Then an email saying how the 4 charges were done.

They stated the charges were called

HOT WATER

COLD WATER

HOT SEWER

COLD SEWER

Each amount was not charged with any usage calculations or any details at all. Just arbitrary amounts. This is illegal in the state of California.

And again referred us to simple bills.

That was in January 2022. 6 months after the building opened.

I contacted Simplebills via chat on their website.

I was informed they do not handle billing for my location even though they have my name and lease information as provided by Landmark Properties. They stated Landmark Properties handled billing for our address.

On the lease Landmark Proerties had not one section about utilities but 4 different sections.

Each saying something different t than the last.

The Final one which they labeled an addendum, describes the billing as a Ratio Utility Billing or a RUB.

This type of billing is used in buildings that have equal amounts of units, unit sizes and tenants per units.

All tenants sign an agreement with landlord to have the bill go to landlord who then distributes equal amounts either per unit or per tenant.

It's a trust based system supposedly based on tenants being responsible for usage and controlling how much they use.

RUB is NOT for off campus student housing in buildings labeled as multifamily highrises. This building has 122 units varying in size from efficiency to 6 bedrooms. Each unit has bathrooms to match bedrooms. 2 beds 2 baths, 3 beds 3 baths up to 5 beds 5 baths and 6 beds 5 baths.

Each bedroom holds up to 4 tenants for large rooms and 2 to 3 for smaller.

It's labeled multifamily on the government side of things in order to gain tax credits exemptions, fees waited and give the city big bonuses for inclusionary housing allocations and subsidized or voucher or bmr units.

So 11 out of 122 are for low income tenants. I am a low income tenant with a section 8 voucher. It's myself and my young child. We were homeless here for 7 years. I fought the city for housing for 7 years. The city impeded in my ability to be housed on every point. Until this place was built. Then they darn near shoved us in here. Against my repeated questioning and concerns about the legitimacy of the lease and the status of the building being labeled as two different things. I did not want to raise my child inside of a college frat house. I was given no choice. It was accept it or they'd say I was housing resistant and have cps take my child. I wasn't housing resistant. I was bullcrap resistant. I signed unwillingly. Knowing it was a trap. I was right. Aside from all the buidling failures that have occured mainly plumbing and water and sewage related, this billing scam is huge.

I was billed for months in which we relocated to a hotel(at my expense) due to water plumbing failures building wide. Our apartment was destroyed by sewage which flooded unchecked for eight days. Landlord refused to repair our unit and was forced to repair the major buidling plumbing failures. But the unit plumbing failures still continue on to this day for every unit.

We are on our 7th manager now. I've been requesting resolutions about my rent ledger which says I owe over $13,000 in rent and utilities. My voucher pays my rent. My unit is uninhabitable and makes us sick. The whole building makes everyone sick from mold and fungus and bad building materials.

So the newest manager is the only one who has spoken to me about thr bills. Yesterday. He stated that SimpleBills is the biller, he showed me a page on his laptop that has supoosed usage for my unit. He instructed me to contact them. Again.

So I did. This morning.

This time I was told yes SimpleBills does billing for my address. But not for my unit. Not for any occupied unit. Only vacant units. Interesting right? SimpleBills also told me that as far as they knew my lease had ended September 30th 2022. But they couldn't tell me more. I asked who they got billing from and usage from. They said "The Provider". I asked who that provider is. No response. I asked how they decided usage per unit and how they billed ? Per tenant? Per unit?

None of the above.

Only for vacant units.

They ended the chat by providing their phone number and stating they'd disclose more if I called. Their non accessible number. Nice huh. They ended the chat by claiming network issues.

Company cannot seem to bill us for one month at a time. They let bills pile up until we owed 2 sewer, 3 electric, and 3 gas bills all at one time. We are on autodraft, so they should be getting paid immediately as soon as they are due. We were 4 days from having our power cut off because SimpleBills can't manage our utilities correctly. When we called customer service, they told us that they can't guarantee that it won't happen again, but are only willing to offer us an extension in paying the bill. We do not want an extension. We want the ability to pay our bills on time and not have our power threatened to be cut off.

Our daughter moved out of her apartment on July 16th, due to mold and a broken vent pipe pouring noxious gasses into her apartment. The building said they notified SimpleBills that she had moved out We notified SimpleBills on July 19th, August 4th, October 19th and August 22nd to stop the incorrect billing. The Apartment complex claims that they have been in touch with their account manager to correct the issue, but three months later they still do not have a resolution

My bank statement shows I paid every month that my two sons had lived in the apartment - there was never a 3 month time period that money was not taken out by Simplebills. They have lived there for 10 months and for 10 months I have had money withdrawn from my bank account. Some months they decided to take money out twice like in January and March. Some months like December, May, and June they decided to take money out in the middle of the month. I have been paying utility providers for over 30 years and have never been billed twice in one month and never had money taken out in the middle of a month (unless I had scheduled it to do so). I am typically billed for a 30-day period and will pay for those 30 days in the next month. Then we come to the last month of billing. They said it was for 3 months but my bank statement never missed a month of them removing money from my account and they didn't start taking money out of my account 3 months after my sons moved in. The lease started in September and they took their first payment out of my checking account on September 28th. When I looked at the last Champion Energy statement it shows that they did not pay the previous month's bill yet I had money taken out of my bank account for them to pay it. I have asked them to explain to me why they withdrew money every single month yet did not pay the electric company. They paid for water and sewer every month but decided not to pay for electricity...even though I showed them on my bank statement that they took money from me to pay for all 10 months. When they did not pay Champions they then rolled the previous nonpayment over to the next bill and added it to the amount owed. I have asked Simplebills to let me know how they plan on correcting this error. They always come back with the same response - You paid in arrears. The first time I talked to someone from Simplebills they were outside playing with a dog. I asked her if she was outside with her dog and she said, "no". I then heard a door open and the wind stopped blowing and the dog stopped barking. She wasn't even at a desk or looking at my account on a laptop. She was outside enjoying a nice day playing with her dog while she kept giving me different reasons why they overbilled me. It was like she was reading a script. I have attached the last Champion Energy statements (I pay for 2 sons so I have 2 statements each month). You can see they added $148.24 to my current bill for each son. That means I overpaid last month by $296.48.

I’ve been getting charged by this company for more than a year since I’ve moved out. When I speak to them on the phone they say it’s the last bill, but that was 5 “last bills” ago. Additionally, I have asked them to provide me a breakdown of the invoices to see what I am being forced to pay for months after I moved out and they refused to give it. Essentially, I am stuck in a position where I just keep paying for utilities for a house I don’t live in with their threat of late fees hovering over my head.

Simplebills is a SCAM! and should be shut down IMMEDIATELY! they go in and switch the dates of when bills are due, and in the end, we end up paying more than what we are supposed to. When you try to contact them about it, they give you the run around and try to convince you that you are not paying more than what you are being charged but that is a lie! I have paid my bill every single month until now and I got a statement for $222 charging me for 3 months (along with my other two roommates who have to pay around the same amount) there is no way that we used $600 worth of utilities, even if it is a 3 month time span (which it is not). My leasing office has tried to contact them on several occasions but they refuse to answer the phone or respond. This is ridiculous, they pry on college students and their parents thinking that we wouldn't notice but it is clearly evident. Not to mention the $8 fee that is taxed onto every bill just for servicing and keeping a card on file (which is a requirement).

I am filing this complaint on behalf of myself and my college student son. My son lives in a 4-bedroom student apartment with 4 other roommates. Over the past several months we have consistently had issues with his water bill rising. His water bill for January of this year was $15.24. February was $17.10. March jumped to $119.09, and I called both Simple Bills and his apartment complex to complain. Simple bills adjusted the bill and applied a credit to our account. As a result, his bill was -$39.15 for April. Then his bill for May was $65.45. June was $77.60 and July is a whopping $107.42. There seems to be an ongoing issue with this Simple Bills account and there is no humanly possible way his water bill should be this expensive. The maintenance department has checked his apartment and there aren’t any leaks causing this bill to be this high. I want the May, June, and July bills adjusted accordingly. I also want someone to get down to the bottom of why there continues to be a billing error for my son’s apartment. I will not stop complaining until this issue is resolved.

If you are a resident at The Retreat or at any other rental complex where the property management company is trying to make you think you have to accept Simple Bills' version of the truth which is illegal and unethical in any case, I would suggest you consider the following:

Simple Bills is NOT a public utility provider according to the Public Utilities Commission. They acknowledge this on their website which states that they are merely a billing and collection company subcontracted by property management companies, and possibly in the business of data mining information about utility use in high-density properties owned by property management companies. As a debt collector they have specific responsibilities under the Fair Credit and Collections Act for one, and are also not exempt from State Attorney General Office's Consumer complaint process, as well as other resolution alternatives like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and any other applicable State and Federal laws.

Consumers have a right to obtain from the public utility provider an exact breakdown of usage for electricity, gas, and/or water for consumption within the unit that they are consuming the utility, or if your unit is unmetered and there's a master meter that the property management company uses you have a right to the exact methodology and again the exact usage data for your unit. A recycled version from Simple Bills does not satisfy they're responsibilities under the Fair Credit Collections Act. They may not report you to a credit bureau or try to collect in any other manner unless you have been given an exact breakdown of usage from the utility source and for your individual unit that you rent. This supercedes any attempt to unlawfully get you to sign away your rights in some hidden language in a rental agreement, because it's not only a violation of Federal Law but it is also of violation of consumer utility and financial protection regulations within each state usually handled by your State Attorney General's office complaint process.

After reading several accounts all over the internet, this reminds me of deceptive practices utilized during the telecommunications company wars in the 1990's. To create confusion among uninformed consumers and to create dysfunctional operational practices to abscond from responsibility and take and keep money that creates a perception of helplessness and where people give up trying to get their money back or to fight for what's due to them.

If you have been targeted with deceptive consumer utility and financial practices, you need to file complaints with your local attorney general's office, the Consumer Financial Protection bureau, the Public Utilities Commission, as well as write a demand letter but also informs simple bills that you are withholding payment in accordance with the Fair Credit Collections Act until they either resolve the problem and or return your money due and only if they provide you with an exact breakdown from the public utility provider and not a recycled version and if they make any attempt to ruin your credit or otherwise try to collect money from you, or in any way think they're going to turn off or cut off your utilities, that they will also be libel for further damages in double and triple amount in Court and that could be a small claims court in your local community depending on the amount, your State County Court, and or your Federal District Court. You should also create a drop-down phone alert and contact system that includes all of the neighbors and residents at your property who are going to do the same thing.

Apparently simple bills like Uber, AirBnB, and other companies into "apps" and other items like circumventing local state and federal laws and regulations, think that they can be and are exempt from regulation and oversight. Simple bills has another thing coming, that they may not even realize: a Nationwide Class action suit, since these illegal and deceptive as well as lack of good faith and fair dealing, appear to try and set another National trend that is not only illegal but also circumvents good faith and fair dealing regulations and other unethical practices that are implicitly regulated and a part of any contract law.

Note: most credit card companies have a 60-day cutoff limit to challenge or dispute a charge, so if you are going to withhold any further payment or you are waiting for a refund you should also send certified a dispute of charges to your credit card company otherwise simple bills will try to outsmart you and delay and delay and delay until you have exhausted the 60-day dispute clause in your credit card agreement. So in addition to a certified letter to both registered agents you should also dispute the charge with your credit card company at that very time.

The following is the contact information of where you need to serve your certified letter and demand and intention to withhold payment:

The Retreat's Registered agent details:

Registered Agent

Agent Name:

CORPORATION SERVICE COMPANY

Agent Address:

300 DESCHUTES WAY SW STE 208 MC-CSC1, TUMWATER, WA 98501

Strangely, they claim to be a Delaware based Corporation and then they claim to be a Foreign LLC, with a mailing address in Chicago; and then a registered agent in Tumwater Washington to try to confuse everyone.

SIMPLE BILLS INC

Texas Taxpayer ID#[protected] Zip76706

SIMPLE BILLS INC.

Texas Taxpayer Number: [protected]

Mailing Address:

422 BAGBY AVE WACO, TX [protected]

Right to Transact Business in Texas

FRANCHISE TAX ENDED

State of FormationTX

Effective SOS Registration Date06/29/2009Texas

SOS File Number0801140394

Registered Agent Name:

RYAN GIBSON

Registered Office Street Address:

422 BAGBY WACO, TX 76706

You have to send your certified mail to the registered agent as well as the registered agent of your property management company owners which is on file with your County Assessor's Office, as to who owns the property.

Then you have to go to your State department of license corporations search engine and or your Tax and Revenue Department Corporation search engine to find the registered agent.

It's really not complicated however it's a good practice to learn because you're going to come into contact with cheaters like this your whole life and if you don't fight them nothing's ever going to change and you are not a helpless victim, especially if Simple Bills is targeting college educated students, who are not the run of the mill uninformed citizen, and who are leading the Starbucks and Amazon union movement.

The Washington State Tenants Right's Union may want to get involved with an organized group to squash attempts to try and make this an acceptable National trend or practice:

Even if there is no third party utility billing ordinance where you live, you can still challenge deceptive practices and the venues I've listed above because those are entities that serve and defend consumer protection against deceptive and fraudulent practices:

http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/search/results?s1=&s2=&s3=114691&s4=&s5=&Sect4=AND&l=20&Sect1=IMAGE&Sect2=THESON&Sect3=PLURON&Sect5=CBOR1&Sect6=HITOFF&d=CBOR&p=1&u=/~public/cbor1.htm&r=1&f=G

Hi, I lived i one of the student apartments of New York until March 31st. I paid the bills of months dated Feb 7 - Mar 8 and Mar 8 - Mar 31st . Now yesterday, I am receiving an email telling I have been charged late fees and they provided another bill for the same dates which I mentioned above. What can I do in this case? Why would someone send two bills for the same months and why the second bill should come after months I left the house? ALso they are adding fees on top of it without any notice

After moving out of my apartment, Simple Bills charged me a full 2 months later for a charge for a single day of electricity. The electricity charge for that 1 day, the 31st of the month, cost only 37 cents. The fees and charges on top of that cost a total of $8.00.

It makes absolutely no sense to send in a separate charge for a single day of the SAME MONTH. When I asked customer service about the charge, they were very firm that they were in the right and didn't even offer to look into it. Completely baffled because in the 12 months I lived at the location I got 15 bills that were supposed to be monthly.

I have had multiple problems with this company charging me for my student apartment utilities. I have been paying on average $100 for a $400 bill across 4 people a month for my utilities, while these are very high I have had worse depending on the month. One main issue is the time period in which I am charged for these utilities. It began being charged the first week of one month to the first week of the next month. For example it stating 31 days from April 3-March 3. This was the pattern for the beginning of my lease but as the months progresses I was being charged as close as 17 days and expected to pay a bill at the first week and the last week of the month. Totaling around $185. This was not the worse with this company. As to the end of my lease I was told I must pay the past two months of my leases utilities, except it must be paid before my lease ends. This process charges me the one bill for the first month and then charges me the average amount for my past 90 days, this being called True Up. The fact is that in the past 60 days I have only spent 5-6 days in my apartment and have been charged $127 for this True Up bill, $80 of which is my new estimated bill for which the entire month has been vacant. The only way to get a refund of this is to submit a request and be approved a refund and it must be done 2 weeks of ending my lease and I I will have to wait 8-12 weeks for this. This also includes that I am not able to see my true bill amount for the vacant month unless I either fill out this request or I wait 4 weeks after the end of the lease to see the true amount of my bill which I would be extremely overcharged for.

Called Simple Bills to be able to discuss why I was being forced to pay a double bill for both the water bill and gas and electric. I paid the month they were charging me for. When I discussed this with a representative that I called at Simple Bills; she told me to e-mail the bills I paid with the confirmation numbers.

I did that and it came back to my inbox undeliverable. That is why I feel I am being scammed. I paid last months bill of double charged (about 480.00) on June 1, 2022. I have not been billed at all for Gas and Electric this month, and it is now July 10, 2022. I barely made it through last month financially. I am not going to pay a double billing again; because of Simple Bills' incompetence!

Sincerely,

Charlotta Williams