Water board charged me someone else''s meter

demi464

Hi, I'm looking for some advice - I may turn to the Citizens Advice Bureau to see if they could help me but I'm interested to see if anyone could offer me some good advice.

I moved into my one bedroom rented flat in Jan 09, and since have paid £39.00 every month for my water.

I began receiving ridiculously high bills which said I owed them over £350, I was extremely shocked as I live by myself and hardly ever use water. It led me to the obvious assumption that it was a leak.

I did several leak tests and found no evidence of any leak, a water board inspector came out and found that my meter number on the bill wasn't even the right meter outside undeground.

The water board had been charging me someone else's meter. As you can imagine this is quite a serious mistake on behalf of them and after months of their enquiries to resolve the matter they contacted me with recaluclations.

The board told me that I was in £600 credit and that they decided the other person's meter who I was being charged would have their mammoth bill 'waived' as it was unfair to suddenly ask for this high amount.

They then credited £600 to my account and because I had my car stolen a week before I spent it on a car. Two weeks later the water board called me to say they had made a mis-calculation and that I now owed them £220.

Can they do this? I'm sick of being messed around and after they dropped themselves in it saying they would 'waive' the other customer's bill why should I pay back money? After all I was the victim of this situation.

How do I know this new allegation is just a 'mis-calculation'?

Thank you for viewing. x

Gothicfairy

Which company is it ?

They can back bill even if it was there fault so that part is right. They really should never had talked to you about the other person so that again has no real point as they will just now say they did not mention anything unless you have it in writing but again they can backbill or not as they see fit so not really much you can do there I am afraid.

You first need to ask them for you MSN and for the reading they are using and what ADC they are applying ( would be easier if I knew which company as they all work in a slightly different way)
You then need to write ( as that becomes DG7 complaint and must be answered within 10 working days, phone calls are DG6 which is 5 working days but don't have as much punch)
You need to explain the situation ( just the facts and nothing more ) state that you paid £39 per month and would like a FULL statment of account to show the usage you were charged with and what money they have received etc.
There is a chance that they will give up at that point as for some companies a SOA has to be done by hand and can take ages..But once you can see the ADC of what you were paying for you can work out how much you should have paid and what you used.

Are you alone in the property ?

lapat

demi464 wrote: »

The board told me that I was in £600 credit and that they decided the other person's meter who I was being charged would have their mammoth bill 'waived' as it was unfair to suddenly ask for this high amount.

They then credited £600 to my account and because I had my car stolen a week before I spent it on a car. Two weeks later the water board called me to say they had made a mis-calculation and that I now owed them £220.

on the first bit of the quote they shouldnt be discussing other peoples issues with you as it falls under data protection, and on both of the quotes they can actually back charge six years for both propertys.