United Water of New Rochelle managers, on the losing end of a dispute over a broken meter with a local building owner, responded by grabbing billing records previously provided to the customer out of the customer’s hand, refusing to return them and then lying about what happened to police and Talk of the Sound.
Police were called to the scene of the United Water offices at 2525 Palmer Avenue in New Rochelle,, between the new Shoprite and the Stop & Shop. No arrests were made. The customer, John Hinchey, 49, is seeking to press charges and has asked police to take up the matter with the Westchester District Attorney next week.
Hinchey, a business owner and licensed real-estate agent in New Rochelle, most well-known for running the annual U.S Marines Toys for Tots fundraiser for over 20 years, owns the building at 303 North Avenue.
On the morning of Wednesday, September 29, Hinchey went to the offices of United Water of New Rochelle to dispute a bill. He met with a customer service representative who gave him a computer print out of his billing records. He returned later in the day having analyzed the bills, preparing for what he believed to be an airtight case. Hinchey says the bills for 303 North Avenue have historically averaged roughly $400 a quarter. A new meter was installed on April 3, 2009. For the first year, the quarterly usage ranged from 24 to 77 but on the May 2010 bill the usage jumped to 329 and a bill of $1,652. Hinchey called to complain upon receiving the bill. For the next six weeks there was no follow up from United Water until July 14 when a company representative arrived to shut off service to the billing for non-payment. After Hinchey explained the sudden jump in water usage on his bill in May, the United Water representative inspected the meter, found that is not working properly and replaced it two hours later. By the next bill, usage had dropped down to 50 and the cost was back to about $400.
Hinchey contends he was overcharged $1,652.
Hinchey says after reviewing the United Water print outs, he came back a second time, later that day, to discuss his bill. He says he met with a woman at United Water for about 10 minutes in a conference room. After listening to Hinchey makes his case, the woman informed Hinchey that he would need to speak with Robert Hernandez, a supervisor in the meter reading department. Hinchey sat and waited until Robert Hernandez entered the room. Hinchey says Hernandez became confrontational right away. He dismissed Hinchey’s claims, speculating that the higher bill was “probably” the result of a leak in the building. Hinchey says when he produced the billing records and began to point out information on the documents that supported his claim, Hernandez leaned forward to examine them, stood up, grabbed them out of his hand put them behind his back and pushed his body forward so that his belly was in Hinchey’s face. At this point, Hinchey says, he began demanding that Hernandez return the documents. Hinchey does not dispute he was agitated and began yelling at Hernandez to give back the papers Hernandez had taken from him. Hinchey says that when Hernandez threatened to call security, Hinchey offered to go one better and dialed “911” from his cell phone.
Much of what happened next is in dispute but what is not in dispute is that United Water took Hinchey’s billing records from him and refused to return them.
Steve Goudsmith, a Communications Manager for United Water New York in Nyack confirmed to Talk of the Sound on Thursday, that documents were taken from Mr. Hinchey. Asked to confirm that United Water was acknowledging Hinchey’s claim that an employee of United Water had taken Mr. Hinchey’s billing records, which also contained notations and calculations by Hinchey, Goudsmith said “yes”. Asked if he understood that Goudsmith was admitting that United Water had committed a crime, Goudsmith said “there’s no crime here. We wanted to give him records in a different format so that he could understand them better”.
Goudsmith then proceeded to make unsubstantiated claims about Hinchey. He repeatedly emphasized his assertion that upon arriving at the United Water offices, Hinchey was loud and threatening — using profanity and scaring United Water employees. Goudsmith stated that the office manager, Christopher Graziano according to police records, heard Mr. Hinchey yelling, called the New Rochelle Police Department and that five minutes the police arrived to escort Mr. Hinchey from the premises.
A review of NRPD records does not support significant portions of United Water’s claims.
Goudsmith repeatedly claimed that the police came to the office at the request of Christopher Graziano, the office manager for United Water of New Rochelle yet police records obtained by the Talk of the Sound show only one call. Police were dispatched to the location at 4:18 pm after a call made by by Mr. Hinchey, they arrived at 4:23 pm and left at 4:40 pm.
Graziano told police that it was he who argued with Hinchey. There is no mention of Robert Hernandez. Talk of the Sound independently verified it was Hernandez not Graizano who argued with Hinchey.
Hinchey says he called the police to document that Hernandez had taken his documents. The police report supports Hinchey’s claim.
Hinchey says he left as soon as the police officers on scene gave him the report number for the report documenting his claim that the billing records had been taken from him. The police report supports this claim. Hinchey was not “escorted” out by the police but left with the police upon receiving the incident report number.
In short, Hinchey, believing himself to be the victim of crime, called police to file a complaint against Robert Hernandez. That allegation is currently under investigation by the Property Theft Unit of the New Rochelle Police Department. United Water of New Rochelle admits taking Hinchey’s personal property, lied about having called the police and is seeking to obfuscate their actions by making false and defamatory statements about Mr. Hinchey to the press and police.
Confronted by records which flatly contradicted his claims to Talk of the Sound, Mr. Goudsmith repeated his claim that it was Graziano who called the police, not Hinchey. Goudsmith says he went to the location in person and claimed that Graziano’s cell phone shows a call to the police. The police have no record of such a call.
Alerted that Talk of the Sound intended to run a story, United Water called Hinchey the next day offering to work with him to settle the disputed bill and emailed him an attached file containing a new print out of the same billing records taken from Mr. Hinchey. The original print out with Hinchey’s notations and calculations, his personal property, has still not been returned.
Hinchey also intends to file a complaint with the New York State Public Service Commission. Any United Water of New Rochelle customer with a complaint against the company can visit the web site or call toll-free 1-800-342-3377.
United Water of New Rochelle is part of Suez Environment, a company spun off from GDF Suez which was created by a merger of Gaz de France and Suez in 2008. The company has been the subject of heated criticism from local officials over a proposed rate increate of 55% and new, much larger fire hydrant fees.