About This Series

How does a Chicago water account get charged $58,000 for water they didn't use? That question, in 2018, began a quest that saved consumers $10s of thousands & exposed an egregiously bad billing system. 180,000 Chicago accounts are currently unmetered — billed based on archaic equations, guesstimates, *not* actual usage. That's just part of the problem.

"Getting Hosed" - our on-going exposé into a bungled bureaucracy - has won an Emmy Award, an RTDNA / NEFE [National Endowment for Financial Education] for financial reporting, and more. However, it hasn't fixed a broken system. So, we'll keep reporting.