Water torture of our £1,300 bowls club bill
I AM the treasurer of a 300-year-old bowling club. In October, I received a water bill for £1,335.29 (£1,220.72 actual plus £ 114.57 estimated). Bills had previously been about £30 per quarter for a kettle and toilet used several evenings per week in the summer.
In the winter, I turn off the water at the mains and drain the pipes, leaving the tap open to prevent bursts.
Last winter, someone either accidentally or maliciously turned our water back on (our stopcock is located several yards outside the property).
I appealed to our supplier, Water Plus, for leniency, but was told in no uncertain terms that ‘any water going through the meter must be paid for’.
Our entire annual membership income, at £1,260, is less than the bill.
I am now being put under pressure to pay up, with threats of debt collection and additional fees.
B. J., Powys.
Water Plus showed little sympathy for your status as a community hub and rejected your offer to pay £600.
You’ve increased membership fees to £50 a year, but tell me you are concerned that numbers will drop because older members either cannot or will not accept further requests for money.
Some members want you to dispute the issue further. However, it is you who would face debt collectors, not them!
I pushed Water Plus and it offered a £200 goodwill payment plus a £200 charitable donation. I would have liked it to go further. You have ‘reluctantly’ paid £821 (after the £114 estimate was removed).
Members have rallied round with cash and fundraising ideas and you’ve taken action to avoid repetition of this event.
a Water Plus spokesman says: ‘We provided a goodwill payment and a charitable donation, and offered an extended, 24-month payment plan to further reduce the impact on the bowling club.’
Your plight highlights the invidious position that clubs such as yours, with small incomes dependent on membership fees, can find themselves in because they are treated as businesses.
However, as a business customer, you should be able to choose your water supplier — details are at open-water.org.uk.
anyone with a water company dispute in england and Wales who has hit a dead end can complain to the Consumer Council for Water at ccwater. org. uk. In Scotland, complaints should go to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, at spso.org.uk. I GAVE Virgin Media one month’s notice to cancel its broadband and TV services in June 2019. It eventually cancelled the service three months later and claimed there was £291.26 outstanding.
I have been in regular contact with Virgin but have now got a letter from a debt collector.
M. T., Reading.
YOu sent me a full chronology of your attempts to contact Virgin, which included emailing, writing to the complaints department, the director of sales services and the customer services director.
No one can say you did not make every attempt to resolve this complaint before coming to me. Since I stepped in, Virgin
Media’s executive team has tried to contact you on numerous occasions but didn’t hear back. Perhaps you have been away.
the good news is that it has cleared your balance and called off the debt collectors. I INHERITED a small sum and an HSBC staff member insisted I invest in its Navigator Flexible Protection Plan for £20 per month. This provided life insurance of £5,225.
In 2010, a letter said my policy had failed a review and I would need to pay an extra £10.96 per month. I refused.
In 2014, I was told that my life insurance had fallen to £3,949.
I am 82 years old, but have no health problems, so could be paying out £20 per month for the next ten years.
H. I., Leicestershire.
YOu didn’t tell me that your case is with the Financial Ombudsman Service. as I’ve explained many times, I cannot investigate cases that are with the Ombudsman, not least because firms will not talk to me about them.
the Navigator Protection Plan is a whole- of-life policy which uses a mixture of investment and insurance to provide life cover.
Premiums can be increased or life cover reduced as you grow older. You rejected the former and so have experienced the latter.
unlike cheaper term insurance, there is no end date to the cover.
HSBC says you have experienced no increase in premiums since 2011. It refused to comment on the commission and fees it has collected on your account. read into this what you will.
Whole-of-life cover is claimed to have specialist uses, such as in inheritance-tax planning, but it can be poor value, often offering more to sellers than to buyers.
Whether or not your case succeeds at the Ombudsman will depend on how the sale was conducted, if the product was properly explained to you and whether it was appropriate for your needs.