overcharged for metered water??

l7atg

I Have Just Had An Experience Which May Be Of Interest To Other People And Indeed To Martin. We Converted To Metered Water In Jan 07 And We Are A Retired Couple In A Semi. Understandably We Paid On An Estimated Basis At First And This Was £24.84 Per Month. We Got A Bill Dated 26 Sept 2007 Which Told Me The Actual Water Used For The Period Of 173 Days From 6 April To 25 Sept 2007 Costed £88.45-- This Included All Standing Charges/sewerage/surface Water Costs. I Therefore Calculated That A Cost Of £88.45 For 173 Days ( A Daily Charge Of Some 51p) Would Suggest A Charge For The Year Of About £187. I Allowed Then For An Increase Of Say 10% And This Would Mean Annual Cost Of About £206. Bet You Cannot Guess How Much My Water Supplier Estimated My Annual Water Costs As!!!! £350.85!!!!! As I Had Overpaid For The Previous Period By Some £75 They Very Generously Knocked This Off To Produce A Total Estimated Amount Due Of £274.07 For The Coming Year. They Therefore Intended To Request £21.18 Per Monthe Thru To October 2008. My Estimate For The Coming Year Was £206 (as Above) Less £75 (credit As Above) Totalling £131 --- Less Than Half Their Estimate!!! I Therefore Proposed To Them That I Pay £9.50 Per Month Not £21.18. After Some Resistance From Them Who Said That Their Figure Was An "average" For Two People Households, That I May Face A Big Catch Up Bill If I Used More Water Etc Etc They Reluctantly Agreed. I Did Suggest To The Company That In Future They Should Borrow From The Bank And Pay Interest Not From Their Own Customers.

Two Weeks Later I Did Exactly The Same Thing For My Mother In Law's Meter Bill And She Too Reduced Her Payments By 50%.

All Customers Should Look Very Carefully At Their Bills To See If Their Water Supplier Is Also Using This Clever Method To Borrow Money From Customers Interest Free. If They Over Charge A Million Customers By £143 Then This Gives Them £143 Million Loan At No Cost. Nice Work If You Can Get It!!! Or Get Away With It.

I Am Happy To Produce The Paperwork To Back My Statements Up And Am Happy To Name My Water Company.

l7atg

test cos im a new user!!!

dmg24

You might want to edit your post. The upper case lettering and the incredibly long paragraph makes it very difficult to read x

Cardew

Firstly welcome to the forum.

I believe you have typed your post all in upper case so you get a post with every word starting with a capital letter. As someone stated it makes it difficult to read.

I don't know how familiar you are with the etiquette of posting on forums, but typing in upper case is taken as ‘shouting’ and considered to be rude. I appreciate that you are probably not aware of that convention!

Getting to the substance of your post, whilst I appreciate the point you are making I believe your assumptions are wrong.

You have only been metered in the property for a few months and IMO(in my opinion) it is perfectly reasonable for the water company to base their estimated bills on average usage as they have no previous data on which to base an estimate.

I have been in my property quite a while and Severn Trent have got my estimates pretty well spot on.

I don’t how much of this forum you have read but the single biggest complaint is that utility bills have been underestimated and a huge debit balances have been built up; exactly the opposite of the practice you are suggesting is being ‘engineered’.

This is borne out by the Regulator who has stated that outstanding debit balances outweigh credit balances. So far from profiteering the Utility companies actually lose money(interest). If you look at the detailed company accounts for some Utility companies this has been raised as a problem.

It is also pertinent to point out that, for water, all customers are at liberty to pay their bills 6 monthly, with actual meter readings, if they wish until a usage pattern has been established or indeed remain on that system.

robin58

I also had this problem over 8 years ago, so it's not not new.

The company I am with wanted to take £240, 12 monthly payements of £20 via direct debit over the year. £240 was the last bill valuation I had on the rates system. They would not take any lower payement scheme.

I had worked it out as about £120 max in a year so I said no.

In fact in the first year, it only cost me £80! So they could have had £160 of my money for nearly a whole year before they would refund it.

I now pay it when the half yearly bill comes in via direct debit.

I would suggest building up the payements in a 'do not touch fund' and pay it half yearly until you can show a pattern as mentioned by Cardew.