Being charged for service dont receive.. water company say its my fault?

hillbillymum

Hello, I live in a rural area and have to use a septic tank as we are not on mains drainage. I received my water bill yesterday from SES water and almost half of my bill is for waste water charges.. a service that they dont and never have supplied to me. I dont keep my water bills but have never noticed this cost on past bills.
The property is 3 approx years old., there has never been waster water pipework installed into the property yet their customer services team have claimed I told them we did have.  They have no record of any conversations or paperwork that I sent in whilst trying to get connected. It took over a year to get my account set up with them. 
Ca anyone tell me where I go from here please before i get on the phone to them again today? 

sammyjammy

Firstly always keep copies of bills and statements.

Get them to provide copies of the bills from when you moved in

Get them to change the billing going forward.

Once you have the previous bills work out what they owe you and make a complaint.

Can you not tell from bank statements how much you were charged previously? if its similar then in all likelihood you've been charged for waste water all along.

hillbillymum

Hello thank you, it was only because my bill doubled. id not had a water meter previously, 
it seems to have occurred since they changed their billing system. To say they were unhelpful and accusatory was an understatement. 

tacpot12

1. Have they accepted that they don't supply you with waste water services now? Have they adjusted the current bill? 

2. I think that they will win any argument about historic bills as it would normally be your responsibility to inform them of the services that you need, and to monitor the bills until you are happy that they are billing you only for the services you have asked them too. This seems harsh, but 95% of customers will have both fresh and waste water services from them, so in the absence of a customer order that states just fresh water, it's a reasonable assumption that you want waste water services. 

That said you could ask for any copy of your original order that they hold. If they provide this and it clearly says fresh water only, then you would have more traction etting a refund for the service you haven't had. But it will not be easy. You will need to show that they have made a mistake. An assumption about the services you require is not a mistake, as they probably were sending you bills that confirmed what you were being billed for. 

matelodave

Sort of agree with @tacpot12 that if you check the bills or your bank account then you should really have noticed what you are paying for.

It's always a good idea to save or download and save a PDF of your bill for a while just so you can compare bills and sort out any queries in the future,.

It's not everso easy if you don't keep your own records and they may not be able to supply copies of previous bills. Same if they have a computer problem which often happens when they have system updates. Have you checked your on-line account.

Same with  gas and leccy if you don't check then you don't know whether you are being correctly billed, especially when there are tariff changes.

jimjames

SES Water don't deal with wastewater so presumably they are billing on behalf of another company - Thames/Southern? If so they are probably being told by that company who has wastewater connections and it might be them that you need to resolve with.