One day last month, Kansas City resident Victoria Tane's Google Fiber Internet service stopped working.

It turned out that Google Fiber cut off her Internet access because she owed 12 cents after an odd series of events involving an unused e-mail address, automated customer account systems, and a sales tax increase. Google Fiber quickly restored her connection and forgave the 12-cent balance after she called customer service, but the incident highlights a problem that Google Fiber may need to fix in order to prevent other customers from losing service over similarly trivial amounts.

The Kansas City Star of Missouri detailed what happened in a story yesterday. Tane has Google Fiber's basic 5Mbps Internet service which has no monthly payment and required only a $300 construction fee. Google Fiber no longer offers that package to new customers, but those who signed up for it and paid the construction fee can use the service with no further payments for a total of seven years.

Tane "paid the total upfront" a year ago, the Star wrote. "$300 to connect, plus $25.08 for taxes and fees. Transaction done. Free for seven years."

The story continued:

Google Fiber, however, didn't treat her account that way. Instead, it spread the $300 out over one year, officially recognizing a dozen monthly payments of $25, plus taxes and fees. And when the sales tax rate rose to 8.475 percent from 8.35 percent, Tane's account was hit for extra taxes. "At the end of the year, they came up short 12 cents for taxes," Tane said she was told after her service was cut off.

When her service was first cut off, Tane said she thought there must have been a problem on her end. But after two days of unsuccessfully trying to figure out what was wrong, she called Google Fiber customer service.

"When she called, customer service informed Tane that her service had been suspended," the Star reported. "A 12-cent balance was overdue. There had been e-mails and, the company said later, two voice messages trying to collect."

Tane said she hadn't seen the e-mails because they went to a Gmail account she had set up when she bought Google Fiber service but never uses.

When Tane offered to pay the 12 cents, she was told that Google Fiber wouldn't take checks for less than $10, the Star wrote.

Tane "offered to tape a dime and two pennies to an envelope." But instead, "the company forgave the total, restored Tane’s service in less than an hour and credited her account for $30." The credit won't be of any use for now because she still has six years of free 5Mbps service left and isn't planning to upgrade to the 100Mbps or gigabit tiers.

Tane uses her Internet service to help run a small business but says the 5Mbps service is fast enough for her needs.

Google Fiber's future in KC is uncertain

Tane's problem came as the future of Google Fiber in Kansas City seems to be up in the air. Expansion of the service in Kansas City has stalled, and a recent Motherboard article quoted a Google Fiber official as saying that expansion plans are "TBD."

Google Fiber told the Star that it treated Tane the same way it treats any customer who has a balance due, making "repeated attempts to reach Ms. Tane to resolve the matter. Google Fiber values our customers, and we have since worked with Ms. Tane to restore her Fiber service.”

We asked Google Fiber today whether the same thing has happened to any other customers and whether the company is making changes to prevent similar problems in the future. We'll update this story if we get a response.

Customer service consultant Micah Solomon spoke to the Star about the Tane case and criticized Google Fiber for not setting up its systems to prevent disconnection over tiny amounts. Although Tane doesn't pay Google Fiber a monthly service bill, the company presumably hopes to keep her as a customer when her free period expires or she decides to buy faster service.

"Solomon said the company’s systems should have been set up to detect that the rift was over such a small amount of money and drop the case instead of the customer’s service," the article said. "Google Fiber’s systems may have operated efficiently, he said, but in this case they 'backfired.'"