Water rebate

dormouse_2

Hi i received a phone call telling me i might be entitled to a rebate on my water bills, i asked them to send me something by email so i could look into it, anyway this is the email i got, just wondered if peeps would give me there opinion please ..........:cool:

Hello xxxxxxx,

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Please find contact details below for Nationwide Energy Services.
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]As my colleague explained today; further to an in-depth investigation into operations within UK water companies recently, it has emerged that over 80% of households in the UK have been Unnecessarily paying their water companies an average of £50 service charge for the disposal of rain water. This has also been featured on Watchdog and the One show recently.
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Those who have been worst affected are those who use Soak a way's or Water Butts on their premises or those who use what are known as unadopted sewage systems. This means that the water company who charge them for the service have never had any responsibility for the maintenance of these watercourses and therefore have no right to charge users for their use. The total process, if successful costs £49.99 +VAT. We take the deposit in advance to cover the administration cost of the claim and if you are unsuccessful we will refund the full amount less a £9.99 admin fee.[/FONT]
We also look to claiming back the last 6 years charges and will immediately get this years charge deducted from your account.
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Then if your claim is successful you will be notified within 2 to 5 weeks. Our current Success rate is around 80%.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I hope this is helpful to you and wish you all the best with your claim.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Kindest regards[/FONT]
xxxxxxxx

Nationwide Energy Services & Fuelswitch.com
Matrix Alpha
Northern Boulevard
Matrix Park
Swansea Enterprise Park
Swansea

[/FONT][/FONT]

Cardew

What a con!

It is true that many properties are paying for Surface Water Drainage(SWD) when they do not need to pay that charge. This is the charge for rainwater that falls on your roof or garden. In some houses that water goes into the sewer system,(and the charge is valid) in others it doesn't - it goes into soakaways etc.

The amount charged varies accordinf to where you live and the type of house. For instance in Severn Trent are it is approx £28 pa for a flat/tce house, £56 for a semi, and £84 for detached.

Just ring your water company and ask for a claim form for relief from SWD.

Gothicfairy

What a lot of .................

They are not able to claim back 6 years even if you have been incorrectly paying as it only goes back to the first of April of the year you claim. So in other words claim right now and you might get it back to 01.04.10
You can claim yourself for free and it is super easy to do..Just send a drawing in to your water company showing where your rain water goes ( to include the down pipes) and a covering letter explaining what you want.
You can also as Cardew rightly stated get a form as well but they will accept a letter (so that you can do it before 01.04.11)

Total rubbish but I guess it makes them rich

dormouse_2

Thanks for the answers, hubby was taken in by it but then he's not a fellow mse'r ha, told im id check on ere 1st.....

Gothicfairy

Thought I had better add for anyone else that comes to this thread :
Water butts do NOT get you a rebate on SWD, 100% of ALL rain water must not return to the system and water butts just don't cut it I am afraid.
Also there are very few unadopted systems left in the UK and most of those are being replaced already and are not charged for now as they don't show up on any of the water companies systems apart from GISST and that is not used in the front office billing dept

treasuretiger

dormouse wrote: »

Hi i received a phone call telling me i might be entitled to a rebate on my water bills, i asked them to send me something by email so i could look into it, anyway this is the email i got, just wondered if peeps would give me there opinion please ..........:cool:

Hello xxxxxxx,

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Please find contact details below for Nationwide Energy Services.
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]As my colleague explained today; further to an in-depth investigation into operations within UK water companies recently, it has emerged that over 80% of households in the UK have been Unnecessarily paying their water companies an average of £50 service charge for the disposal of rain water. This has also been featured on Watchdog and the One show recently.
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Those who have been worst affected are those who use Soak a way's or Water Butts on their premises or those who use what are known as unadopted sewage systems. This means that the water company who charge them for the service have never had any responsibility for the maintenance of these watercourses and therefore have no right to charge users for their use. The total process, if successful costs £49.99 +VAT. We take the deposit in advance to cover the administration cost of the claim and if you are unsuccessful we will refund the full amount less a £9.99 admin fee.[/FONT]
We also look to claiming back the last 6 years charges and will immediately get this years charge deducted from your account.
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Then if your claim is successful you will be notified within 2 to 5 weeks. Our current Success rate is around 80%.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]I hope this is helpful to you and wish you all the best with your claim.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Kindest regards[/FONT]
xxxxxxxx

Nationwide Energy Services & Fuelswitch.com
Matrix Alpha
Northern Boulevard
Matrix Park
Swansea Enterprise Park
Swansea

[/FONT][/FONT]

indeed a con. dont give them any of your details. the only people who can organise any kinda rebate is the water company themselves and THEY do the assessing not these con artists. i work for a water company and this looks like one of con things they emailed round about. theres another thread here as well like this but the guy called at the door. the water company wont be affiliated with the company in any way and would advise not to give these people any details at all.

Jekis46

I agree with the post above, I also heard from a friend is.

sirmarcus

Thanks for the above.

I have just had a phone call from this company giving me a long and great talk on getting a water rebate. I didn't pay them anything. Just said that I needed to do my research on the net before agreeing to anything and I then find this thread.

I just have one query. If I now contact my water company and they agree that I shouldn't be paying for a service that they aren't providing, I assume that my subsequent water bills will be reduced accordingly ?

Thanks

sirmarcus

Just found out the answer myself by going onto my water company's website where they confirm that subsequent water bills will be adjusted accordingly.

I'm also going to send an email to Watchdog as this company are clearly conning people.

K9sandFelines

They asked me to answer a few generic questions, address details, contact phone number and if i have the internet etc etc. No bank details or anything ( not that i would anyway). However i signed a form consenting to a phonecall about this so called rebate thinking it was genuine; but at the same time wondered why i hadn't heard about this before. So i take it i should ignore the call or just say i don't want to pursue any so called claim?

t0rt0ise

Unfortunately they have their fingers in a lot of pies so now you've given them your phone number they'll be calling about other things. But you should never buy anything including this sort of service from door stop sellers or phone cold callers. If it sounds interesting, listen to them, say no thank you and then go look it up on the internet.