Discovered I've been overpaying Welsh Water for ~10 months (£800+)

hattrick123

Hi all,

Posting to see if anyone's been in a similar situation and had any luck getting a goodwill gesture back from Welsh Water for significant overpayment?

I live in a 2-bed house - one adult full-time, plus a child on shared custody (so roughly 50% occupancy). I've been paying £120/month to Welsh Water on an unmeasured (rateable value) tariff. Can't believe it's taken me this long to question it but it was through a conversation with. my partner and his (much lower) rate for a similar sized house that I called them today and mentioned my household size, and the advisor told me I'd likely be much better off metered.

I've now applied for a meter (90-day wait) and been put on their interim assessed measured charge in the meantime, which has dropped my bill to £45/month. Great going forward, but that's a £75/month difference, so if it had been in place for the last 10 months, I'd have paid roughly £750 less.

The advisor on the phone verbally confirmed I'd been overpaying this whole time. I know unmeasured billing isn't a "mistake" as such, and there's no legal duty on water companies to proactively suggest a meter — but I'm sending a written complaint asking:

• whether Welsh Water can show they gave me the core customer information about charging/metering options when I registered as a new occupier (which I don't believe I ever got)
• whether they'll consider a goodwill payment given the scale of it and the advisor's admission

Has anyone actually succeeded in getting a backdated refund or goodwill payment out of a water company in this kind of situation? Or is this a dead end and I should just bank the £75/month saving going forward and move on?

Thanks in advance for any war stories or advice.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

I expect you'll find it to be a dead end. You could have asked for a water meter on the day you moved into the property, and it's common knowledge that metered billing is cheaper than rateable value for most households.