Essex & Suffolk water got my meter reading wrong!

DF1256

I was I Paris last week and got an email from Essex and Suffolk about my water bill. £140 pcm!!! My family has 2 adults and one 2-yeae old, that's it. Last year the bill hiked to £70, I knew it's was because of extension work we carried out. But regular use in Feb-Aug period has no way caused £140 pcm. For the first time in my life, I took a scew driver and opened the water cover. I turned off the switch under sink and stayed for 5 mins, no meter moving, so no leak. Then took a picture of the reading, went back to my bill, turns out the reading is 200 above actual. :T I am calling them next Monday!

Lala69

E&SW did exactly the same thing to me last year. Claimed they’d read the meter and billed me £146, twice our usual bill. Armed with a torch and binoculars I got on my hands and knees in the street (no mean feat for a fat 50-year-old) to check the reading and their figure was way out, my bill should have been half that. They clearly just made the figure up. Their estimated figure during COVID is way over too and bears no relation to our normal usage. Think they just try it on and assume we won’t want to get filthy dirty checking the meter; I wish I could change suppliers.

Mercenary

I've just been through several phone calls after discovering that my (metered) water bills were going up hugely for some reason from the usual £20 pcm.  I went outside to lever up the cover and inspect this fabled meter for the first time, checked for leaks and took photos to compare the hugely disparate readings.
On scrutinising my bills VERY carefully, I found that I'd been billed for the past 2 years for the wrong meter number. It turns out that two of the serial numbers had been transposed when the meter was installed and added to my account, so I'd been paying for some other household's water all that time.  They've obviously been filling up a pool lately or something! 
Happily, after investigation, the water company have quickly issued a large refund and have amended my meter number to the correct one.
My advice is for everyone go out and check your meter serial number against your bills. 

[EDIT]  My monthly Direct Debit should be going down quite a bit now, after this. Bonus!

matelodave

Doesn't anyone ever check their water meters against their bills to ensure that the serial number is correct and that the readings are correct as well. Especially important if you live where there are multiple meters, either in the street or shared building accommodation like flats