Decision Report 201203533

Summary

Mr C complained that Business Stream had inaccurately measured his water consumption. He thought he had been overcharged because a neighbouring property's water supply had not been removed from his invoice. Business Stream visited the property and found that a submeter on his neighbour's ground had been bypassed. They fitted a new one, took a reading from it and deducted money from Mr C's bill. However, Mr C was not happy about how they calculated this.

After Mr C complained, Business Stream had reviewed the consumption and agreed to make a further credit to Mr C's account. They also provided evidence that the credits on his account were backdated to when the problem was first reported. They confirmed that the metering was now correct, and we were satisfied that they had sorted this out. After we became involved Business Stream said they would remove a recovery charge from Mr C's account and make him an ex-gratia payment, as they recognised they had not communicated with him well, and had taken too long to fix the problem. We were, however, concerned at the length of time this had taken and the efforts Mr C had to go to in pursuing the matter, and we upheld his complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• apologise to Mr C for their handling of the matter.