Thames Water cancelled account without my permission and now I have a £500+ bill

LondonLupie84

I received a bill from Thames Water advising me that I owe £534.58 pence to be paid by Direct Debit in October. Upon receipt of this bill I was in shock, as up until that point I have been paying £24 per month via Direct Debit.

I called their customer service agents to find out what had happened. They advised me that my account was closed in February and a new account created and said it was likely due to a new tenant moving into the property. I informed them that this was impossible as I have been living in the property with my son since October 2021 and have no intentions of leaving.

I checked my bank account and found that my monthly Direct Debit was still active but no payment had been taken since February. At no point during this time did Thames Water advise me that my account was closed, and they had stopped taking payments, so I was under the impression that payments were still being made each month.

When I asked the customer service rep to explain how this had happened, they advised me that there were no notes on the system. Understandably, I was very distressed as I'm a chronically ill, single mother to an autistic child. The more they spoke, the more I realised they couldn’t provide any answers to my questions and kept suggesting that I set up a payment plan to cover the debt. I asked to speak to a manager and was told that I would receive a call-back the following day. In the meantime, I wrote a formal letter of complaint to Thames Water which I sent today.

The call centre manager also called me back today, apologised profusely and informs me that they take full responsibility for this matter. I ask him what happened and he says it was a "technical error" on their end - but failed to explain further. I advise him that although I appreciate the apology, I have already issued a formal letter of complaint. He begs me to retract my complaint and offers me a goodwill gesture of £50 credited to my account. I ask him what do I do about the remaining £480-something outstanding? He advised that a payment plan can be set up. I refused and advised him that I will continue to pay £24 each month until a full investigation has been done and a satisfactory outcome reached. 

Has anyone else experienced this before? 

And what did you do to resolve it? 

I'm willing to escalate this as far as necessary as I'm truly appalled that this was allowed to happen. Not to mention, I'm deeply stressed about the £500 balance that accrued as a result of their blunders. This all seems deeply unfair, unprofessional and out of order in my opinion.

Keep_pedalling

Although they made a mess of things you still owe for any missing payments. Is your water metered? If not the amount they say you owe is considerably higher than the £24 per month you should have been paying.

born_again

So while they have made & admitted a mistake. You have made no payments for the bill. So are £168 up in your bank account. Through them not taken any payments.
So the £50 would be a bonus on top of the money you have not paid them.

Did they say that they will set up a new DD to take the £24 a month you have offered?

What are you hoping they will do? 

 note to self, check account at least monthly.

Exodi

LondonLupie84 said:
I advise him that although I appreciate the apology, I have already issued a formal letter of complaint. He begs me to retract my complaint and offers me a goodwill gesture of £50 credited to my account. I ask him what do I do about the remaining £480-something outstanding? He advised that a payment plan can be set up. I refused and advised him that I will continue to pay £24 each month until a full investigation has been done and a satisfactory outcome reached. 

Sorry but I'm not clear on what 'satisfactory outcome' you're expecting? If I'm reading between the lines, I think you may be hoping they'll just wipe any outstanding balance?

You say you were paying £24 by DD until January, with no payment taken from February onwards (as they closed the account for reasons unknown). Surely you accept that's at least £192 of water you haven't paid for?

LondonLupie84 said:
I'm willing to escalate this as far as necessary as I'm truly appalled that this was allowed to happen. Not to mention, I'm deeply stressed about the £500 balance that accrued as a result of their blunders. This all seems deeply unfair, unprofessional and out of order in my opinion.

I appreciate they closed your account without warning which of course they should be held responsible for (and have apologised and offered compensation, though not to your satisfaction), but I'm suprised someone in the vulnerable circumstances you describe never noticed this until they reached out 8 months later. 

It's also a tad disingenuous to suggest that the balance 'accrued as a result of their blunder' - the money was due regardless, you've just been able to enjoy not paying towards water for the last 8 months.

How do they arrive at the £500 figure? Do you pay based on usage or rates assessed? If the former, I expect your DD has also been set to low.

Ayr_Rage

How did you not notice that the DD had not been taken for 6/7 months?

How can 7 months of bills at £24/month be £534?

Brie

Don't retract the complaint.  Do accept the £50 as an interim apology.  Set up a standing order for £24 a month so that further debt doesn't accrue.  Look to find a way to make up the back payments of £24 a month for 7 months.  

Tell them that until they have adequately explained how they had agreed to a DD of £24 as being sufficient to pay monthly and now they have back tracked you will not be making up the balance of the £534.

If they suddenly say it's for previous use prior to a year ago tell them they are not allowed to back date their bills more than a year.  

LondonLupie84

Exodi said:

LondonLupie84 said:
I advise him that although I appreciate the apology, I have already issued a formal letter of complaint. He begs me to retract my complaint and offers me a goodwill gesture of £50 credited to my account. I ask him what do I do about the remaining £480-something outstanding? He advised that a payment plan can be set up. I refused and advised him that I will continue to pay £24 each month until a full investigation has been done and a satisfactory outcome reached. 

Sorry but I'm not clear on what 'satisfactory outcome' you're expecting? If I'm reading between the lines, I think you may be hoping they'll just wipe any outstanding balance?

You say you were paying £24 by DD until January, with no payment taken from February onwards (as they closed the account for reasons unknown). Surely you accept that's at least £192 of water you haven't paid for?

LondonLupie84 said:
I'm willing to escalate this as far as necessary as I'm truly appalled that this was allowed to happen. Not to mention, I'm deeply stressed about the £500 balance that accrued as a result of their blunders. This all seems deeply unfair, unprofessional and out of order in my opinion.

I appreciate they closed your account without warning which of course they should be held responsible for (and have apologised and offered compensation, though not to your satisfaction), but I'm suprised someone in the vulnerable circumstances you describe never noticed this until they reached out 8 months later. 

It's also a tad disingenuous to suggest that the balance 'accrued as a result of their blunder' - the money was due regardless, you've just been able to enjoy not paying towards water for the last 8 months.

How do they arrive at the £500 figure? Do you pay based on usage or rates assessed? If the former, I expect your DD has also been set to low.

Yes it is a result of their blunder because my DD is still active and wasn't stopped by me. The account wasn't closed by me either so I take no responsibility for the fact that there is an outstanding balance! Had they written to let me know what was going on I would've paid immediately. Prior to that, I never missed a single payment.

LondonLupie84

Ayr_Rage said:

How did you not notice that the DD had not been taken for 6/7 months?

How can 7 months of bills at £24/month be £534?

I have a separate account for household bills etc, and I don't check it unless there's an issue. So I take responsibility for not checking regularly however, I had no reason to believe my water bill wasn't being paid. I'm a busy working single mum of a special needs child, I have a lot on my plate and unless advised of an issue, I assume bills are being paid via DD without issue.

LondonLupie84

Keep_pedalling said:

Although they made a mess of things you still owe for any missing payments. Is your water metered? If not the amount they say you owe is considerably higher than the £24 per month you should have been paying.

I'm aware money is owed and as previously stated, I will not be paying it until an investigation is made into why they closed my account without my consent and allowed this to happen. I also need them to explain how they arrived at this figure as its higher than it should be. In the meantime I will continue to pay £24 per month as per my original agreement, and will wait to see what the result of my complaint is. 

Exodi

LondonLupie84 said:
I take no responsibility for the fact that there is an outstanding balance!

It was as I expected. Sorry, I simply don't understand nor agree with your stance, but of course I wish you the best of luck with your complaint.

Please let us know the result so it may be of use to others that find themselves in the same circumstances.

LondonLupie84

Brie said:

Don't retract the complaint.  Do accept the £50 as an interim apology.  Set up a standing order for £24 a month so that further debt doesn't accrue.  Look to find a way to make up the back payments of £24 a month for 7 months.  

Tell them that until they have adequately explained how they had agreed to a DD of £24 as being sufficient to pay monthly and now they have back tracked you will not be making up the balance of the £534.

If they suddenly say it's for previous use prior to a year ago tell them they are not allowed to back date their bills more than a year.  

I have accepted the £50 offered, and have just set up an SO for £24 each month. I've been paying this amount for about 18 months as I receive certain discounts due to having a special needs child and receiving certain benefits. 

I appreciate your advice about backdating more than a year, as I wasn't aware of this.

Ideally, I'd like to know exactly what is owed (prior to agreeing to any payment plan), and how this whole mess was allowed to happen and why nobody contacted me. I've never missed a single payment prior to this and I'm extremely upset about the whole matter.