Woman in 'despair' after Thames Water charged her for 'one million cups of tea'

13 February 2024 , 12:14

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One Thames Water customer received a water bill worth £1,100 (stock image) (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A Thames Water customer was left in "despair" after receiving a water bill of £1,100 - which equated to 1.1million cups of tea.

The customer - only known as El - contacted The Guardian consumer help page "out of desperation" about their issue. El told the team that she lived in a two-bedroom flat in London, which had a water meter, with her husband and her baby. The family had only moved into the flat early last year and in the five months leading up to September 2023, Thames Water said they had used £803 worth of water. This was on top of £300 which they owed from a previous bill.

She said: "I have been calling Thames Water almost every day since last March to try to fix this problem. It sent an engineer who said when our meter was changed it was mislabelled. I think I’m being billed for my neighbour who lives in a three-storey house. That was months ago, and even though Thames Water acknowledges the problem, it hasn’t done anything."

El told the consumer team that Thames Water said it would fix the issue within 10 working days back in November last year but nothing had been sorted yet. She had now sent a written complaint and contacted the Consumer Council for Water for help. She added: "How difficult can it be to fix this and recalculate my bill? Why has it taken almost a year?"

Guardian consumer journalist Zoe Wood said issues such as this did little to ease people's concerns over having a water meter installed. According to the bill Zoe received, Thames Water claimed El used 274 cubic metres of water between April 19 and September 27 - which would equate to 1.1million cups of tea. Zoe also noted that El's £800 bill was "almost double" last year's average annual water bill for England and Wales which sat at £448. She added: "It is patently obvious that something is wrong."

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After the consumer team contacted Thames Water on El's behalf, the water company sent out another engineer to her flat to assess the issue. In a statement, a Thames Water spokesperson confirmed that the water bill was incorrect and that she was "wrongly billed" for her neighbour's water use following the "incorrect installation of meters at her property".

The spokesperson said: "Our teams have installed a new meter and will take a new reading in order to issue an accurate bill. We have paused her billing since December and this will continue to be the case until we calculate the correct bill. We will also issue a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience caused and fully accept EI did not receive the high levels of service we strive for.”

Ruby Flanagan