Billed for wrong meter

Thank you so much for all your help and hard work to get this sorted for me. I have felt very let down by my water retailer and the ongoing customer services issues have caused me a great deal of stress.

The issue

Tracey says has been running her small business for 20 years and her average water bill has been around £260 – this suddenly and unexpectedly jumped to a massive £20,000. She contacted her water company repeatedly and they eventually agreed to reduce her bill to £12,000.

Tracey disputed this new figure too, arguing that she was not using anywhere near the amount of water it would take for it to add up to £12,000. Despite this, her company insisted that the current information charges were correct and payable based on the meter readings they had on the account. This is when she got in touch with CCW for help.

What we did to help

Tracey informed us that there were two other companies in the building she works in, both being billed for supply and wastewater. We asked the company to arrange a visit to the premises to check that the correct meter was being used to bill Tracey. We also asked the water company to confirm which of the three meters at the property supplies Tracey’s business, providing photographic evidence of the meter and its location. We also asked the company to pause any debt recovery action and provide a breakdown of the account to include all the meter readings they had.

The result

After our requests, the investigations showed that the wrong meter had in fact been used for the customer’s account. The water company cancelled the bills and raised new invoices in line with the correct meter reads. The £12,000 which the company had stated was correct was reduced to just over £800.