water bill rant

Pep

Got a water bill 2 weeks ago from thames Water, £96, based on "estimated" reading.

Payd online straight away. Then I take the actual reading and submit it online myself.

Now got a new bill based on the actual reading: the previous £96, plus another £14, total they ask me to pay £110. The bill ignores the fact that I had already payd the previous £96 so I should pay just £14.

Called to complain. They confirm that despite the bill say I must pay £110, I must not pay £110 but only £14. After all that is "just" a bill, is not there to show how much I owe.

Hard to believe such a perverse logic.

redvee

Pay the difference and phone back and speak to another call centre operative and you'll get a better response hopefully. Tell them you consider the matter resolved.

ColinJ

Ha - I just got an electricity bill for £498.06 when I normally pay a tiny fraction of that. The meter reading had been logged as 4126 rather than 412(.6).

The company's billing software didn't even blink at the fact that my electricity consumption had apparently suddenly surged by 1000%!

I contacted the company and told them about the mistake and suggested that one of their programmers should put a test in the software to flag that kind of change and request that the reading be checked. I received my amended bill (I'm actually now £38 in credit!) and a terse reply saying "We are sorry about the mistake. Our system doesn't detect that kind of problem." Er, yes - I'd noticed that!

Le Commentateur

The last two quarters the gas supply company has sent massively inflated "estimates" – then I would get cold calls from their sales centre enquiring whether I would like to switch to Direct Debit.... coincidence?



Anyway, the original poster should just pay the difference.

redvee

My supplier upped my DD until I told them I was cancelling it and going back to a payment card. The reason for the increase was so that I was in credit with them for the large winter bill, nothing to do with the fact that they wanted my money in their bank account gathering interest along with all the others who fell for the 'in credit' line.

AndyF16

I got 2 letters in Tuesday morning's mail - it's time to switch water suppliers; Anglian Water want £70 per quarter for our house alone, whereas Oxfam can supply a whole bloody African village for 25p per day :idea:

rick_chasey

AndyF16 wrote:

I got 2 letters in Tuesday morning's mail - it's time to switch water suppliers; Anglian Water want £70 per quarter for our house alone, whereas Oxfam can supply a whole bloody African village for 25p per day :idea:

Yeah but in East Anglia they need to put expensive chemicals into the water to stop people inbreeding so much.

Le Commentateur