SouthWest Water lack of customer service

Brie

I do wish this was one of those things where you could deal with someone else but because it's water we're stuck.

OK so I was checking my bank account the other day, noticed I hadn't paid anything to SWW for a while and started checking my bills.  Last bill I had was in March at which point my account was in credit for a small amount.  Checked further on my bank account and the last payment I made was a year back.  Now I know there was a problem with our water meter which meant we ended up with a large credit but rather than refund this SWW simply stopped taking the DD.  OK.

But the thing is is that SWW is for our water supply.  There's another company, Wessex Water, that we pay for sewage.  WW bills us on the basis of what SWW reports to them for our meter.  And the SWW only reads the meter once every 6 months but WW bills every 3 months.  So WW is billing us twice a year based on an out of date reading.  

Now I went on the SWW website and was pleased to see that there's an option to get an intermediate bill if you submit a reading.  Unfortunately that can't be done by us as our meter is in the middle of the road under a metal plate and not accessible.   

I was also pleased to see that there was a whatsapp option to contact SWW.  So I did that and waited for them to respond.  That was before 1pm this afternoon.  They have yet to respond.

In the end I rang them up (5 minute wait) and talked to someone who said no, I couldn't get bills every 3 months.  I mentioned the whatsapp non response and they simply went on to talk about my direct debit.  So either she didn't care or didn't want to comment.  

So now given that it's nearly 6 months since the last bill I assume one will be generated soon. Customer service thinks it will be "in a few weeks".  At that point we will have been receiving water for a full 7 months without the account being in credit and no payments being made.  Paying won't be a problem but it just seems such a badly organised system.  I'm not surprised that water companies are in debt.

Ok rant over.  (meanwhile I'll leave the whatsapp open and see if they ever get back to me.)

Peter999_2

They are shockingly bad but unfortunately all the water companies are.      It was ok getting bills every 6 months when the water/sewage was cheap but now it is incredibly expensive they should be forced to have smart meters which read themselves at least once a month and bill accordingly.     There is no reason technically not to do it though part of the meters will need to be changed out (the smart bit just clips onto the existing meter).

Brie

Peter999_2 said:

They are shockingly bad but unfortunately all the water companies are.      It was ok getting bills every 6 months when the water/sewage was cheap but now it is incredibly expensive they should be forced to have smart meters which read themselves at least once a month and bill accordingly.     There is no reason technically not to do it though part of the meters will need to be changed out (the smart bit just clips onto the existing meter).

Well I assumed that we were on a smart meter but I have no way of knowing.  But a monthly (or every other or every third month) reading would also alert people to when there is a leak.  A neighbour discovered only on getting an astronomical bill that they had a leak, probably since just after the reading 6 months earlier.  So instead of being charged £80 it was more like £1200.  And more then because it took a couple of months to get it fixed.  They did get it sorted eventually but it was a big worry and disruption and potentially caused a lot of damage.

Brie

OK - so the whatsapp is still open.  And again - having uninitiated this process at about 1pm yesterday someone finally responded at about 7:20 pm and (surprise!) I didn't reply so they closed the conversation from their side 20 minutes later not having answered the questions I posted on their.  I woke up the conversation today a bit after 2 pm and had to go through the same process as yesterday asking me the same questions and saying someone will get back to me.  Must admit I'm starting to respond in a fairly snarky manner but being sure to direct any ill feelings to the system and the management rather than the individuals who might, eventually, have time to respond.  

prowla

They're a total washout.