Anyone received this recently? My parents and I both have, both by 14 litres per hour, and the result is an increased bill of +90%. Right as the company faces financial difficulty. Coincidence right?

by jj266

18 comments

  2. it would be a bit of a shit conspiracy for their financial benefit.

    they’ve alerted you to unusually high usage. presumably you’ll now fix the leak and deny them the future revenue that they would’ve received if your leak had kept on wasting water. if they hadn’t warned you who knows how much more you’d owe.

    also, once per account life time you can claim a refund for water wasted by a leak over your normal average usage as long as you meet some criteria like fixing it promptly. there’s a form on the website. so they not even get to keep the cash for what has been leaked.

    alternatively there is no leak and it’s just a case of incorrect meter readings. check that before you pay a plumber’s call out fee.

  3. Yep a few peoplw i know have got them. Definitely a ploy to claw some more money to give to their shareholders before they go bust

  4. I had this exact thing and they couldn’t source the leak, so they said they would have to dig up my front garden and because of that, it was my responsibility and I had to pay a shit ton of money.

    Anyway, when workmen came, I refused them to do the work…so they decided to first check leaks with the meter on the pavement (not on my property). After digging up the pavement, they found the leak.

    Absolute jokers!

  5. I had this issue, and after many calls I learn that they had installed a smart meter without my knowledge. The issue was that it wasn’t installed correctly so I received the leak letter. After almost a year of back and forth, I decided to contact the Guardian section “consumers champions” that was the only thing that made them move their butts.

    Here is the link: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/feb/13/thames-water-charge-meter

  6. t’ll all be automated so any deviation from the usual bill must mean there’s a leak, right? Not that they’re just greedy bastards or that one department hasn’t bothered to speak to another.

  7. I received one of these, had a Thames Water engineer come out and told me I was losing a litre of water a minute. Gave a deadline of one month to fix it. I called a known plumber who found that the leak was from a faulty boiler part dumping water straight into the overflow drain; he replaced it and I informed Thames Water who accepted it.

    Perhaps they are sending these out because of their financial situation. In my case, I was informed and fixed a fault in my home I didn’t know about.

    I would add that another plumber said the fault would be in underground pipes and would need to dig up the whole garden; I think your chances of being scammed are more likely from unscrupulous plumbers than Thames Water clamping down on leaks.

  8. A 14 liters/hour would cost £250/year?? Then why my latest 6 months bill for 32 cubic meters is £196?

  10. I had a similar issue where it turned out that Hackney Council was using my water to water the public gardens in our neighbourhood.

    Only took about 10 months and so many call I can’t remember until they had to admit their mistake and pay me back the money.

    I’d ask that they send out an engineer to check the issue.

  11. I absolutely do not understand water provision in this country. For years now bills have massively increased year on year, amidst constant reports of debt loading, massive exec bonuses, and terrible management, along with constant issues like leaks. Just seen the news that they are ‘inevitably’ going up again, but a large percentage. How the hell are these companies getting away with behaving and performing so poorly AND charging much? Surely there is some measure of customer protection against this kind of racket?

    And how are prices constantly going up? Water isnt a commodity like oil is it? Do we import water?

  12. Ok update, mystery is solved and it’s my fault and I can’t believe I forgot why. The reason why everyone is receiving them is apparently Thames water has new AMP-8 targets and oftwat’s enforcement order, they must have given their letter-sending algo an update or made it more sensitive.

  13. They pay you if you fix the leak in a certain amount if time, dont think its a conspiracy. The coat per litre went up in April regardless of your leak

  14. They haven’t sent me a leak letter… but I apparently have a water meter. Never seen it or been told where it is, but somewhat glad I have it because of the Martin Lewis rule of less people than bedrooms. **BUT…** as a household of precisely one person, no visitors most of the time ’cause I hate having people in my house… I apparently use 250-300 litres **a day.**

    I’m a first-time homeowner and like to think that I have my wits about me… but that sounds like an insane amount of water for one person to use a day, right?

    I follow a lot of water saving rules (1 or 2 short showers 4-5 days a week, eco-flushes, probably only use a litre a week for my houseplants, I wash one dish, one cup, one fork 2-3 times a day, I don’t drink tap water — always bottled among other things), nothing in the house is leaking, I don’t own a washing machine or dishwasher…

    …and they don’t see any problem with one single, solitary person using up to 300L a day.

  15. Can I send them a bill for excess water usage given their infrastructure has been leaking water across the south circular in forest hill for at least 72hrs?

  17. Not London but still Thames Water…

    I got a bill in Feb for almost triple what I normally paid. I started freaking out, thinking I’ve got a leak somewhere.

    So I did the usual thing of check the meter with all taps off and see if it moves. Go to the meter and it’s flooded with rain water and a fuck ton of ant eggs.

    A quick blow torch and drainage later, and my meter is showing roughly what it should be in line after the last 16 bills.

    So they just made up a number and tried to overcharge me, roughly around the same time they needed their last bail out.

    When questioned about why they picked the number, they just shrugged

  18. I got one of these years ago. I had plumbers round multiple times. Lived in a flat. Zero leaks reported or detected. I was absolutely sure the meter was backwards but they weren’t having it.

    What was it? Backwards meter. Water Co paid me thousands to cover costs because their installers messed up installation.

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