Severn Trent holding onto my money!

Confused101_2

Severn Trent have admitted that they owe me £450. They continued billing me for my old address and i didnt notice *blushes*. However, they have been promising to credit my bank account for about 4 weeks now. I have called 6 times to chase this up and last time a supervisor said it would be in my account by today. Suprise, suprise it isn't.

Is there a governing body for utilities, or any suggestion on what i can do now? Cheers

Fran

OFWAT, the water regulator for Wales & England.

Consumer Council for Water Representing water customers in Wales & England.

DEFRA Responsible for all aspects of water in England.

Confused101_2

Bacs payments take 2 weeks in Severn Trent's office (!) So i can expect my money about 6 weeks after my original call. They also say i cannot transfer to another water supplier, so im about to check that out now.

Thanks for the links.

DJ1UK

Confused101 wrote:

They also say i cannot transfer to another water supplier, so im about to check that out now.

Thanks for the links.

Usually true. You can sometimes use one supplier for water and one for waste water (taking away), but usually you only have the option of the one supplier in your area.

DJ

2poor4this

Your stuck with them for now I'm affraid.

"Usually true. You can sometimes use one supplier for water and one for waste water (taking away), but usually you only have the option of the one supplier in your area."

I think this is probably true for some of the smaller water companies
eg. south staffs water only supply water, severn trent are responsible for the waste water.

mallard

We have had loads of problems with severn trent. Two years ago we were evidently using the same amount of water as a brewery and owed them hundreds, then we didn't then,we did and so on. They then demanded £500 a week before christmas and wanted it paid!! They actually couldn't understand that people might not have 500 quid to just give them all in one go! All good fun i suppose but it then transpired they owed us money! They have owed us money on three occasions and on each one we have asked for this back - suddenly it takes them up to 6 weeks to issue a cheque but they want us to pay within five days. All seems a bit one sided. So we contacted Ofwat in the first instance and Water Voice in the second and suddenly 7 Trent changed their tune and for the latter gave us 10 quid compensation.

Watervoice has just changed to some water consumer council but i must admit they kicked someone's butt and severn trent moved - if only we could. Perhaps a bore hole.....

mahgnirtle

I had overpaid SevernTrent and they refused to payback the Money, It was about four years ago but I think it was up towards £400, I know ;-( silly me, the only good thing was it was I had one less bill to worry about for some considerable time, which I was happy with anyway.

inmypocketnottheirs

Personally I would give them a Final Notice with 7 days to pay or you will commence legal action. Presumably you have it in writing somewhere that they owe this money. On the final demand tell them that you will be adding court costs, legal fees and statutory interest. After all it's what they would do to you.

HTH

pixie1

When I worked for a water company refunds did take a very long time to process, and if it was a larger amount it took even longer. It took a number of people just to authorise it before it went for payment.

You are stuck with your water company im affraid, they have all looked into 'common carriage' but because of contamination ect its too hard to do right now within the water industry.

If you put your request in writing and mark it as a complaint under the guarnteed standards of service they have to at least reply to you in writing within 10 days, or just call ofwat, water companies normally jump for them

pixie1

Whoops I forgot to add....ask for a gesture of goodwill due to the time its taken for them to sort this out, you may only get a tenner but its better then nothing