Thames Water have made a mistake & we are paying someone else's bill & it just jumped 140% - help!

MarHomBu

Hi-
Our water is with Thames Water. They increased our water bill by 140% this year. They also didn't notify us that they were changing it. When we phoned to complain we were met with 'bills increase on average by 40% due to essential maintenance & inflation costs' but no way to reduce the bill.

It doesn't seem correct that last year we were paying £30 less per month for two adults. Thames Water said it was only possible to reduce the payments if we are claiming disability benefits which we are not but in either case it shouldn't make any difference if you are paying for water you are not using.

Is there any other course of action we can take? We are already paying Thames Water £8 a month so we can pay by direct debit on a specific day of the month.

When we phoned Thames Water told us they knew how much water we were using because our smart meter told them. But we don't have a smart meter installed. Thames water gave us directions to our smart meter in our house but the directions didn't match with the house layout. They asked for details of our HMO but our house isn't an HMO - they shared usage with us and the smart meter has high usage while we away from the house.

Thames Water won't accept we don't have a smart meter. We have a visual meter that I offered to send them photos of & we don't know how to get this sorted out. We think we might be paying someone else's water bills... Does anyone know how to formally escalate this so we can get resolution or have any ideas? 

There isn't a house that matches the one they described near our house. Thames Water said they started using the smart meter with us in 2017 but we have only lived in this house since 2021 and always done visual meter readings with Thames Water up to this year with no issues.

Thames Water have offered to send an engineer out to 'reinstall our smart meter' but we don't believe this is the solution and don't want to be forced into accepting a smart meter.

We have saved all our conversations with Thames Water. 

Robin9

Can you read the serial number ?      Does this info differ from what's on your bill.

chrismevans

we had similar with United Utilities, only to be told we weren't paying enough last year, so we're tripling it this year, no way to argue back as they have a monopoly on the area, no other water provider.

MattMattMattUK

chrismevans said:

we had similar with United Utilities, only to be told we weren't paying enough last year, so we're tripling it this year, no way to argue back as they have a monopoly on the area, no other water provider.

Every water supplier in the UK is a monopoly, there is no region in the UK where any consumer has a choice of water supplier.