Serious help needed urgently - a catalogue of errors (anglian water)

goosemc

oh my god where to start....

ok well i have lived in a 2 bed house without a water meter for 2.5 years.

I was paying by payment book, approx £48/month and all was well.

My financial situation deteriorated and i neglected to pay Anglian water for a period of time, and never received a reminder... so sadly (with also working nights and being rather brain dead) forgot to pay them for a few months.

My payment book was withdrawn and in february of this year i called them to apologise and try to sort out the problem. i was asked to make an immediate payment of £50 and told that a payment book would then be sent out and i could resume payments.

I never received anything, not even confirmation of this agreement.

in march 2007 I received another end of year type bill, followed by a reminder in April. Sadly I had no funds at this time and my situation was spiraling out of control. I reached the decision in may that I could no longer afford to live at this property.

I recieved a letter on 20th May stating final notice and court proceedings would follow, I called to let them know I was leaving the property in June (as my tenancy was up) and asked to arrange some kind of payments, but refused to pay the entire bill as they were demanding, because it was incorrect as I would not be there for some of the time I was being charged for.

I was told that anglian water cannot calculate a final bill until the property is vacated, despite the fact I was not on a meter. So even though I had given them my moving date, they asked me to call after I had moved out.

I then recieved another letter at the beginning of june, dated june 3rd, that court proceedings would commence unless I got in contact immediately.

i called the second I had read the letter and was told that it was now too late to stop the court proceedings and I would be getting a CCJ!

I explained that I was waiting for the final settlement figure and how can I be taken to court without them knowing what I owed, as the figure they were quoting also contained a good 9-10 months that I would not be living in the property!

I was told that there was nothing I could do to stop it, and even when I offered to make a payment there and then they refused and said it was "pointless" as the process had already been started - even though I only got the letter on approximately the 4th (dated the 3rd) they had started court proceedings on the 5th - how on earth can I contact them and stop it, if they already started it when they posted the letter?!!!!!

Anyway, time goes on I left the property on the 30th june as planned and now I have made a total of 4 offers of payment, told them 5 times of my change of address and everytime I speak to someone they say they have no record of me leaving that property!!! Even now!

I got my court papers through and filed a defence stating that they were trying to take me to court for 9-10 months of time i will not be at the property and also mentioned that i asked for a payment book and was refused and that i asked for direct debit and was refused and the only time I was asked to make a payment of £50 - I did it the same day!

They now say they wanted TWO £50 payments before sending a payment book, they can show me no proof of this and I have no recolection of being told that at all!!

So now to the present day...

My "case" is now being handled by a debbie at the legal department, she has informed me and placed a note on my file that it is only her to ever deal with me or any enquiries I may have about it and nobody else is allowed to even try to help me sort this out. She is a "paralegal".

The last time I spoke to her was on tuesday and during the time i tried to explain my situation and offered again to try to make payment, she told me to "be quiet and listen to her" and also "its irrelevent even if you do make a payment - we will still take you to court and you will still get a CCJ that will ruin your credit rating for 6 years"

I called again later that night, spoke to someone else (I have his name recorded) and he informed me that "the whole thing seems very odd" "it seems to have been handled badly" he also told me "I could set an agreement for payments here and now, but I better not because of the comment that debbie has made on your account". I offered to pay some money, even though I did not know even to this day what my final settlement figure was and he told me NOT TO!!! He said he will speak with some people and call me back the next day after 5pm....

No call....

I called again and spoke to another chap (also got his name) and he said "I am confident this can be sorted without court" "don't worry about the $140 court fee's" "I will speak to the appropriate people and call you back on or shortly after 4pm on thursday night"...

no call....

I called again tonight and asked to speak with a manager - i get put on hold for 8 minutes and then disconnected...

i call again and after a 7 minute wait get put thru to a lady and demand to speak with a manager. I finally get put through and this is what she told me :

"I have never seen or heard of anything like this in my time at anglian water, i have never seen a customer treated this way and a block put on an account like this. there are no notes from anyone other than debbie on your account, despite you giving dates and names of people you spoke to and despite their promises to help you, it seems to me that this debbie, who is only a paralegal, which is a job title not a qualification, has been getting a big ego boost from this and it seems that she is causing anyone that tries to help you to be intimidated and be afraid to make a note or follow up the call"

She spoke to the legal team on my behalf...but sadly was also told that only debbie can deal with it and she is also not allowed to let me pay something or try to resolve this in any way.

they are denying that i called them at the end of may/beginning of june to inform of my house move. But they also say that there are no notes on my file even recentlydespite me having names of who i spoke to since - so why am i not surprised!!

How convenient for them to have no record of that call!

It seems to me that they will not let me make a payment, they will not admit my call at at the end of may/beginning of june to inform of change of address and they will not let anyone even try to help me sort this out.

How it has been left now is that debbie will not give me a settlement amount until she "see's documentary evidence" that i have indeed left the property, and she said that then i "have to sign a admission form". She said that "discussing it further is irrelevent and making payments will not affect this in any way from being taken to court!"

what on earth can I do?!

Surely they cannot bring a CCJ against me when they have neglected to update my records for at least 6 weeks since me informing them of the house move, how can they take me to court when they don't even know how much they are taking me to court for!?
How can they take me to court when i have tried to pay and been told not to until they "try to speak with the appropriate people" or "get me a final settlement amount"!?

What can I do?

jaxxy00

Im so sorry to hear of your situation and im afraid i cant help at all or offer any suggestions. All i would like to say though is i totally sympathise with your situation as my own experiences within the last couple of weeks when it comes to official departments is a total b***dy nightmare.

Unfortunately there just doesnt seem to be anyone answerable when mistakes are made and we are left to try and sort them out. I have recently spoke to 2 different managers about incidences and yet they havent satisfied my query and i will be writing a letter of complaint to a higher level. Do i expect it to get me anywhere though? Probably not.

I hope someone comes along and can offer you some advice and help. Good luck.

thescouselander

By the sounds of it your only option left is to put up a good defence in court. Do you have household insurance that includes legal cover? If you do I suggest to give your insurance company a call and get them to help you.

Cardew

In the time it has taken you to write your post you could have written to the company and stated your position; in fact I would still do just that and send it by recorded delivery.

Continual conversations on the phone(which, by the sound of it, got heated) are just a waste of time.

From what you have said I don't feel you have much of a defence. You have a substantial debt that would appear to have gone on for a long while. Whilst I don't doubt your version of the telephone conversations, they don't sound plausible and I would be very surprised if they were accepted in Court. Indeed those conversations don't affect the central issue that you refused to honour your agreement and didn't pay Anglian for many months.

I am also unclear about your aims. Obviously you want to avoid Court and/or a CCJ. However from what I can understand you feel that, although you have left the property, Anglian are under some sort of obligation to offer you 'easy terms' to pay off your debt. Given their dealings with you, it is easy to understand their reluctance to take that path. From their perspective they are far more likely to get the money you owe with a court order, than rely on some 'unofficial' arrangement with you.

Personally I would try to estimate how much you owe and beg/borrow/steal! the money and send them a cheque by recorded delivery. As you are not on a meter it is very easy to estimate this amount as the annual bill can be divided by the time you have spent in the property.

Sorry to be so blunt, but simply expressing sympathy for your plight will not be helpful IMO.

goosemc

I appreciate I did get in a muddle at the start of the year, but I spoke to them in february, appologised and was asked to pay £50 immediatley, which I did, and then I was supposed to be getting a payment book, it never came.

The standard end of year bill arrived in end of march and I ignored that as i assumed the payment booklet would arrive next.

I then got the red bill and called and informed of my imminent house move and was told to call again after we'd left the property.

I then received the "court warning" letter, I called again as soon as I finished reading it and heard that it was too late and it would go to court.

so how does it not "sound plausible" that I informed them I would not pay the entire amount that would include 9-10 months that I would not even reside in the property and was asked to call again after i'd actually left so they could calculate the bill? I am not lying for goodness sake, i did what they asked me to do!

Even last night when I spoke with them they asked me "when was it you left the property?" - my account is STILL not updated and I STILL don't know how much i owe them.

As far as I can see they sent the court warning letter and gave me TWO days to respond, then started court proceedings for an unknown amount of money. Despite me doing what they letter recommended - ie "contact us immediately to stop court proceedings" - they went ahead anyway.

I have written to them, and now also contacted ccwater.org.uk.

I was not asking for sympathy, I was asking for advice.

Cardew

If you read my post I specifically stated "I don't doubt your version of the telephone conversations" However people can tell the truth and it still not sound plausible in a court of law!!

By your own admission you forgot to pay your £48 monthly payments for several months. Is it not 'plausible' that you are being pursued, in court, for that money that you owe? If you have a payment book with unpaid slips it is not difficult to work out how much you owe.

Instead you seem to concentrate on the 2007/8 bill which would not appear to be the issue –it is surely the money outstanding on the 2006/7 bill(and earlier?) that is the issue.

I also did not imply you had asked for sympathy; merely commented that being objective, if blunt, was better that offering sympathy - as given in Post #2.

The heading on your post is “a catalogue of errors (anglian water)”. It seems to me that most of the errors are yours.

You don’t seem able to appreciate that when you phone(as opposed to writing) you get in contact with a different call centre operator every time; each of them have zero knowledge of your case. They cannot ‘read themselves’ into a complicated case whilst on the phone and it is surely not unexpected that you get a poor response. At best they will pass the buck to a supervisor who will see that the matter is already ‘in hand’ and take no action.

Anyway regardless of the fault lying with you or Anglian it would appear that legal proceedings have been initiated. IMO you have a very weak case and trying to ‘move the goalposts’ from your 2006/7 debt to the 2007/8 bill will not work. Thus your aim should be to try to avoid court action at all costs.

To achieve that aim - I repeat “Personally I would try to estimate how much you owe and beg/borrow/steal! the money and send them a cheque by recorded delivery.” There is a hope the letter you have now written will 'stall' the legal proceedings.

If you don’t do that, you will finish up paying them the full amount plus court costs; unless you file for bankruptcy.

You don't deny you have a large debt, so even if you do convince the court that there have been errors in Anglian's handling of your case, what do you think the outcome will be?

firesidemaid

you need to speak to the equivalent of 'watercom' the governing body of anglain water - can't think what they are called.

tell them the story and see what they say. depending on the outcome of this then write and send a letter to anglain water via recorded delivery.

have found out who it is now! consumer council for water - 08457 959 369

goosemc

Thanks guys.

I have emailed the water council and will see what happens. the worst and most annoying thing is that anglian water are not giving me a chance to avoid court.

They will not tell me how much I owe them in total and when I offered payment regardless they refused and said "its irrelevant whether you make any payments, we are not going to stop the court action!"

I just want to pay them, I don't want a CCJ and it looks like there is nothing I can do to stop it. I am even prepared to pay in full as I do have the means to do so now!!!

Yes mistakes have been made, first by me and now by them, but regardless of that I was not given a chance to pay between the first letter warning of court action - they sent it to court TWO days after posting me the letter, even though it stated that if I made payment or contacted them immediatley then court could be avoided... I did contact them immediately and was told that it was "too late"!!!!!