Anglia Water Customer relations - an update

Dabbad

Anglian Water Customer Relations - an update

I attach copies of posts made in July 2012 & July 2013

Since July 2013 I have paid another £598.04 in charges. So the current position is that I have paid £1107.07 to Anglian Water over the last two years and many thousands of pounds over the last twenty nine years.

Unfortunately it is still not possible for private customers to change suppliers but I remain hopeful that , in due course , I will be able to switch away and when that time comes I can persuade many other customers to do the same.

Dabbad wrote: »

Since July 2012 I have paid another £572-03 in charges. So the current position is that I have had my water supplied by Anglia for twenty eight years and have now paid many thousands of pounds plus £572-03 in charges. Unfortunately it is still not possible for customers to change suppliers and until an element of competition is introduced no doubt Anglia Water will continue with their 'highhandedness'. It is remarkable how things can change with a little competition. After all can you imagine the same response from a gas, electricity or telephone company. My original post has had so far over 850 viewings and if only 1% of these resulted in a switch eventually Anglian would be substantially 'out of pocket'. I intend to carry out an annual review of the position and will post accordingly.

I attach a copy of my post made in July 2012:

Dabbad wrote: »

As most people know it has been possible for some time to switch both electricity and gas suppliers. There is no doubt that this has resulted in both an improved level of customer service and an element of price competition.

However, at the moment, it is not possible for people to switch their water supplier. I have been at my property since September 1985 and over the last twenty seven years have been supplied with my water by Anglian Water. During this time I must have paid thousands of pounds in water charges.

Last August I received through my letterbox an ‘important notice of works’ from Anglian Water informing me that ‘in order to carry out essential work on local water pipes we need to temporarily turn off your water supply between 00.01am and 6.00am on 2nd September, as part of our commitment to improving customer service we will credit your account by £20.00 if we fail to restore your supply within the given timescale.’

When I woke up at 8.00am on 2nd September there was no water. This was particularly inconvenient as I had my two grandchildren, aged 2 & 4, staying with me at the time. Still I assumed that I would be eligible for some compensation and as the water was eventually restored at 3.45pm, over 2.½ times the estimated turn off time, I claimed for £50.00. I was amazed to learn Anglian Water refused any compensation on the basis that the water was turned on again within the timescale quoted but then had to be turned off again when a further problem arose. Apparently it was up to me to store a certain amount of water in the event of a problem. If this had been mentioned in the original ‘notice of works’ there would have been no dispute but to say that I should have stored water without any suggestion from Anglian Water is fatuous. The fact that they know full well that I am unable, at the moment, to switch supplier must be the reason for their ‘highhandedness’

I have informed Anglian Water that I will be switching suppliers as soon as I am able to. I believe that I will have influence with friends to do the same. In addition I intend to repost this notice when people have the option of changing suppliers so that further defections may be made.

shireknight

I am also a disgruntled Anglian Water customer.

When I moved into my house the first thing I did was have central heating installed which included having the old hot water tank taken out and a combi-boiler put in in it's place, I also had the tank fed power shower replaced with an electric shower.

From the very first time I used the Electric shower it was apparent that the house had a low water pressure problem, I knew this because the Electric shower has a safety cut out feature that shuts off the heating element if it detects low water pressure resulting in instant cold water.

For the next couple of years every time I had a shower it was a total gamble, sometimes the water pressure would remain strong and the shower would be nice and hot, other times I would spend the whole shower with water that was constantly getting hot and cold the whole time as the element kept kicking in and out as the water pressure rose and fell, some times there wasn't even enough pressure to have a shower at all so I couldn't have one full stop.

I constantly complained to Anglia Water and depending on who I spoke to some people would claim there wasn't a problem, others would say they knew about the problem but not what was causing it and sometimes I was even told what the problem was, anyhow one night I was having a nice shower and halfway through the pressure dropped and refused to kick back in again leaving me covered from head to foot in soap and no way to rinse it off and I went ballistic.

I contacted Anglian Water and told them from now on I would be deducting money from my water bills as compensation for the poor service they were providing me and true to my word when the next bill arrived I paid the full sewerage bill but deducted an amount (25% I think) from my water bill.

I did this with every bill telling them I wouldn't start paying the full amount again until they resolved the problem.

After about another two years and (they claim) multiple investigations to discover the cause of the low water pressure I got a call one Saturday morning from Anglian Waters Chief-Engineer with the good news that he had discovered the problem and it had now been resolved (I won't tell you what it was because you'd be shocked) and true enough I rushed to the bathroom to check and the water pressure was good and "touch wood" apart from the odd blimp now and again has been fine since.

This was about six years ago, as soon as the pressure problem was fixed I started paying the full bills again however I have always refused to pay the arrears that built up during that two year period where I was deducting money for poor service and Anglian Water refuse to write off the arrears themselves.

I constantly get threatening letters from Orbit which I think are Anglian Waters in-house debt collecting team and once they even passed the debt to a proper solicitors but as soon as I replied telling them the full story they sent me a polite letter saying they were dropping the case and returning it to Anglian Water.

I really hope one day that we are allowed to choose our own water suppliers because at the moment with their monopoly of the business they can treat customers just however they want to.

Cardew

Dabbad wrote: »

Anglian Water Customer Relations - an update

I attach copies of posts made in July 2012 & July 2013

Since July 2013 I have paid another £598.04 in charges. So the current position is that I have paid £1107.07 to Anglian Water over the last two years and many thousands of pounds over the last twenty nine years.

Unfortunately it is still not possible for private customers to change suppliers but I remain hopeful that , in due course , I will be able to switch away and when that time comes I can persuade many other customers to do the same.

Lucky you are not in South West Water catchment area or you would have paid a lot more.


The blame lies with Maggie Thatcher's government who stupidly privatised a monopoly, giving each company vastly different commitments and a varying customer base to pay for the costs. The Regulator Ofwat is the final arbiter on the approval of these charges.


How would it help if another company took over from Anglian? Under the Water Act that company would still have to modernise the largely Victorian infrastructure, look after beaches etc.


Thames Water or Severn Trent only have lower charges than Anglian because their commitments/customer base are different.