United Utilities Billing

madnes

Ok, I moved in my flat March 2008. I informed united Utilities. I paid the instalments. I applied for a water meter this took United Utilities 3rd party company 4 months to install. Blame was passed to myself for refusing them entrance - No appointment was ever made by H20 and I don't recall refusing them entrance. United Utilities refused to uphold the complaint. After I disputed the decision it was then upheld.
The meter was installed in September of 08. I was still being billed as a non metered customer again I wrote to UU and there response was due to a technical error they could not amend the billing. They decided to credit my account with around £100.00 and suspended my billing.
I rang them a few months later in early 2009. Was told again issue still not resolved. A few months later was told as my account was in credit no bill issued. Was told the same for over 12 months.

I have now been hit with a bill of £207.99. This is a final demand.
Again spoke to them and I have been told my charges have been backdated to 2008. Surely it does not take nearly 2 yrs for them to resolve there billing issues.
I am now being threatened with Legal action for non payment.
I have offered them payment but it is not enough to cover the bill in full. They refuse to enter to a pay arrangement as I have refused to pay them for nearly 2 yrs apparently.

At no stage have I refused to pay them.

Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.

DVardysShadow

I suggest you write back to them with meter readings and say that their bill is in dispute, because you are metered. See what they come back with. If you can picture a day in court, where UU say 'Your Holiness, madnes owes us £207.99" and you say "Your Holiness, my water is metered and I went through all of this grief to get my meter and still UU refuse to bill according to my meter readings which I have given them 7 times", I think that you can see that the droids with no imagination will push this towards court, but ultimately a proper solicitor will see it and feel too embarrassed to take it to court.

I know of one instance where a customer was not being given a proper breakdown of charges and a very arrogant Senior Customer Services Advisor wrote back to say that this would not be given. Customer paid the undisputed part of the bill but recieved a notice of intended court action and wrote back along the lines 'If you are minded to take this to court, please do, but you would be expected to provide no further information to the court in support of your claim beyond that already supplied'. Water Company solicitor wrote back with a full letter of apology - he did notwant to stand up in court with that. The point being to dispute the bill because it is not metered.

madnes

I Scanned all of the letters I have received from them and sent them to the Water Consumer Council. The complaint as far as I see is still open and has been since 2008. I don't think I will need a final response letter after this time.

I spoke to 2 mindless drones today one this morning who promised to call me back.. easy way to get out of the call. She never called me back.

One this evening who kept asking what was the reason for my call. Oh and she would set up a pay arrangement!

She also claimed my meter has been read every 3 months. I told her the meter reader is thinking up figures if that is the case.

Anyway, an email has been sent to Phil Green at UU. Lets see what excuses come back from customer relations!

DVardysShadow

Don't phone them. This is all too clever for the phone droids to deal with. Actually, i am sure they are mostly able to deal with it, but these days they can only do scripts, because that is basically what they get on their screens - the pennies they save on the basic queries are thrown away in buckets on the complex problems like yours. Write.

madnes

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Don't phone them. This is all too clever for the phone droids to deal with. Actually, i am sure they are mostly able to deal with it, but these days they can only do scripts, because that is basically what they get on their screens - the pennies they save on the basic queries are thrown away in buckets on the complex problems like yours. Write.

Totally in agreement with you there.

I will offer them a payment though towards the usage just so they can't say I refuse to pay.

madnes

madnes wrote: »

Totally in agreement with you there.

I will offer them a payment though towards the usage just so they can't say I refuse to pay.

United Utilities have responded in a 3 page letter. They have credited the account therefore no arrears owed to them.

rmiller

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Don't phone them. This is all too clever for the phone droids to deal with. Actually, i am sure they are mostly able to deal with it, but these days they can only do scripts, because that is basically what they get on their screens - the pennies they save on the basic queries are thrown away in buckets on the complex problems like yours. Write.

Agreed, we wrote letter upon letter, upon letter. And finally got what we were after! Plus, it's easier to photocopy and keep track of when you sent letters compared to trying to prove you called on certain date.

If you do prefer calling, keep a log of the date, how long you were put on hold and what the result was. That way you have a little bit of a back up.