Are you being overcharged too?

justwantedtosay

I just had my water bill and spotted that for some reason [ha-ha!] my provider has decided that since they put the price up I've been using more than 35% more water each day compared with the first part of the bill period, meaning they have charged me for more water than I actually used when it was more expensive and less when it was cheaper and so bumping up their profits. I'd never considered the need to give an accurate meter reading on the day they change the prices as we do with energy - I'm not sure that it's possible anyway. Has everyone else's bill been fiddled in this way too?

While I'm moaning, I see that the standing charges make up over two thirds of my bill. That seems a tad unreasonable to me, and it doesn't encourage us to use less.

wild666

Most of the water bill is made up of charges for some form or other with the usage of the water from taps making very little in the total payment of the yearly bill. 
My water bill SC's come to about £100 give or take about £10 and the rest is for the water used which in my case is about £20 for 12 cubic meters per year.

justwantedtosay

wild666 said:

Most of the water bill is made up of charges for some form or other with the usage of the water from taps making very little in the total payment of the yearly bill. 
My water bill SC's come to about £100 give or take about £10 and the rest is for the water used which in my case is about £20 for 12 cubic meters per year.

You're missing my point which is that my provider is profiteering by falsely making out that my daily usage has been very much higher since April 1st than it was before. The bill also says that the average single person household uses 34-74 m3 a year and a family of four 136-174, so this con would make a lot more difference to most people as you and I appear to be exceptionally low users.

CSI_Yorkshire

justwantedtosay said:

wild666 said:

Most of the water bill is made up of charges for some form or other with the usage of the water from taps making very little in the total payment of the yearly bill. 
My water bill SC's come to about £100 give or take about £10 and the rest is for the water used which in my case is about £20 for 12 cubic meters per year.

You're missing my point which is that my provider is profiteering by falsely making out that my daily usage has been very much higher since April 1st than it was before. The bill also says that the average single person household uses 34-74 m3 a year and a family of four 136-174, so this con would make a lot more difference to most people as you and I appear to be exceptionally low users.

How much was the actual difference?  What was your bill, and what would your bill have been if there was a split that you agree with more?

Water usage is greater in summer than winter - garden watering, car washing, drinking, showering, ...  Not as big a swing as heating demand the other way around, but it's still something.  So assuming a bit of a daily increase since April isn't necessarily wrong.

How much of that difference was profit?  What margin does your provider make on the usage component of your bill?

It's only "bumping up their profits" if they actually make more profit at the higher price than they did at the lower price.  That's not always true.

justwantedtosay

CSI_Yorkshire said:

How much was the actual difference?  What was your bill, and what would your bill have been if there was a split that you agree with more?

Water usage is greater in summer than winter - garden watering, car washing, drinking, showering, ...  Not as big a swing as heating demand the other way around, but it's still something.  So assuming a bit of a daily increase since April isn't necessarily wrong.

How much of that difference was profit?  What margin does your provider make on the usage component of your bill?

It's only "bumping up their profits" if they actually make more profit at the higher price than they did at the lower price.  That's not always true.

It wasn't much for me but I was trying to warn higher users - which is most of you - that you should check your bills.

My water usage is nowhere near 35% higher in the summer. The amount anyone drinks is absolutely negligible compared to overall use, I'd have thought you'd wash the car more in winter to get the salt off, why shower any more often in summer? - there was lots of advice here to take a warm shower before bedtime to stave off the winter cold, and very many people don't have gardens or ones that need much if any watering - and my provider shouldn't assume I do. There's certainly been no need to water the garden during the last month or more here. I use less water doing the washing up in summer as I hardly ever cook and have less to clean, and less doing laundry as I wear less.

As for your last paragraph, that's not right. It's not that they are charging more for summer use or just more because they've put their prices up [whether or not that makes them more profit], the problem is that they're charging post price rise prices for pre-price rise use.

I'm still sore from when BG sent the first bill after a 5 year fix many years ago. They did quite the reverse and based the charges on my using the same amount of gas in summer after the price had gone up as in winter when it was much cheaper, thereby bumping up the bill dishonestly. It was a significant amount as the price had gone up a great deal in those five years. This was so long ago no-one, well not me anyway, was aware of needing to provide your own readings. They'll con you any way they think they can get away with!

CSI_Yorkshire

Ah, so your complaint is that the supplier's general assumptions are not accurate to your bespoke circumstances.  Not profiteering at all then, which has a precise meaning.

I can't argue with that.

justwantedtosay

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Ah, so your complaint is that the supplier's general assumptions are not accurate to your bespoke circumstances.  Not profiteering at all then, which has a precise meaning.

I can't argue with that.

How on earth did you reach that conclusion!? Most of the reasons I don't use more water in the summer apply to most people. I doubt anyone apart from the few with gardens that take a lot of watering use more than 35% more water in summer than any other time of the year.

justwantedtosay

CSI_Yorkshire said:

Ah, so your complaint is that the supplier's general assumptions are not accurate to your bespoke circumstances.  Not profiteering at all then, which has a precise meaning.

I can't argue with that.

Further to your snide comment, I've had a response from my water supplier who have refunded the overcharge and made no mention of allowing for different usage rates at different times of the year in their surprisingly full response, so it looks as though you are wrong. Well, there's a first time for everything.

matelodave

One way around this is to read the meter yourself on the day that the charges increase and submit those reading to the water co. That what I do and have never been overcharged with a random guess.

MultiFuelBurner

It's an interesting idea, one I hadn't thought about til reading this but yes no reason not to read the water meter before a price rise now it's becoming more and more expensive