What a result. I contacted the ombudsman about my sons outrageous bill from Sothern Water. Within 24 hours of the Ombudsman contacting SW, my son had a very apologetic phone call from SW and an admission that they had actually billed him for someone else's water!!!!!!! It's a shame that when he telephoned them and e-mailed them that they didn't discover this though. It was only once the ombudsman became involved that it got sorted within 24 hours. What can I say... well done Mr Ombudsman.

DO NOT use their 0845 number, go to
saynoto0870.com, click search for an alternative number, then type in southern water and all geographical numbers will come up, choose the appropriate number and you will not pay their unethical phone charges.

My 75 year old neighbour has just received a bil for £500.00, strange he is on water meter, was threatened with bailiffs if not paid, today we received a bill for metered water. Letter has now gone to the C.E.O recorded delivery, watch this space!

Why have my payments gone from £76 to £265 over 6 months, this can't be right can it?

What is going on????? I have been paying my water bills by direct debit and yes they have gone up every year but so had everyone's... So I thought!!! I then decided to install a water meter to 'save money'. My direct debits have now gone up to ove £40 per month and apparently I owe them £501, I only live in a 1 bed flat how can this be?? It's a joke!!

I have just received my bill from Southern Water for the period 10 Jul 08 to 16 Jan 09 (metered water and waste). On the bill is a stated inclusion of 1.5% "due to previous misreporting". This reduction is not itemised and hence is only a statement. Following research, I found out that Southern Water was fined £20.3m for..."deliberately misreporting customer service performance to Ofwat and
systematically manipulating information to conceal its true performance over an extended period of time and the company has acknowledged this."

The decision confirmed that "Bills will be reduced in 2008-09 to return the money it should not have received at the 1999 price review." Does this equate to 1.5% or Southern Water are only playing silly beggars again? Southern Water is also billing me £333.13 for the 6 month period, which I believe is exorbitant. I have requested a breakdown of the bill but how can I verify their claimed meter readings. I have no faith in Southern Water and was forced to cancel direct debit payment when I found out they had been increasing deductions without notification. (true rating = 0)

Free water, thanks Sourthern Water...

I have Portsmouth Water but Southern for sewage. I'm always ahead with Portsmouth Water, always seem to owe money to Southern. I pay £11 a month to Portsmouth, £25 to Southern as thay say I owe them money. I don't know why, just had another payment card from them. They now want £32 a month. Can you tell me why as I can never get a answer from them. I tell a lie, got one last year - when I said I wasn't happy, could not see why they think I owe them money, all I got was I hadn't been paying right amount. I said I wasn't paying this much and got told they would cut my water off if I didn't pay. So I carried on paying the £25 but had no letters saying sewage going up but they now want £32 a month for me and my husband.

I used to work for this very odd company where training says customers come first. The day you are dealing with them it all comes down to call rates, more calls per hours is good, customers service doesn't matter.

People just passed calls around different departments as to remove a customer with a problem that they didn't have the answer to as the supervisors weren't available.

I am ashamed to say that I worked there and was not allowed to give the 110% I have been giving in all my other jobs to the customer.

It was 0.1% for customer 99.9% for stats. Wrong wrong wrong!!!

I also am dealing with a load of incompetent overpricing (suspect they are reading the wrong meter) and total lack of communication. So when all else fails try contacting www.ccwater.org.uk (Consumer Council for Water - complaints and enquiries!).

My property was flooded with sewage water in August and Southern Water have been useless at dealing with our complaint. I have been in contact with Consumer Council for Water - Southern. They will mediate between us as the dispute evolves. Does anyone have any experience of this mediation service? Is it truly objective?

I left Southern Water as I found I could no longer out up with the failing levels of service the "new management" have imposed. Like the other blogger below, it is ironic that the old management who got sacked for mis-reporting were able to provide a far better level of service than the current bunch of overpaid dictators. I totally agree that in SW the customer comes last, and outsourcing comes first. The standard of service is shambolic and they are pushing more and more work to India and the level of complaints is rising. I know for a fact that the DG figures are still being manipulated and things are worse than ever. Like I said I had to leave as I simply could not put up with the way things are going. The Current CEO and directors should be ashamed of themselves - they have turned a happy-customer-focused company into a horrible place to work that only focuses on stats and where staff that want to provide quality service are slapped down.

Well, what can I say... I'm very disappointed in Southern Water. I was paying by direct debit every month, I had no problem until I decided to move. I contacted them to let them know and give them my final reading of the meter, they said they would forward the final bill in the post. I was very shocked to get a bill in the post saying I owe them nearly £200; I contacted them and explained that this must be a mistake as they were taking money each month. It was not until she said that the bill had gone up 6 months previous. I told them that they did not inform me of this and that it was there mistake. They have now sent a final letter which I have to pay. Southern Water are a bad company and need to inform customers of this. Customers beware. I am now moving into a new house and I will def not be going with these.

I have had enough of Southern Water as the water in my flat and my neighbours water has a bad taste to it and made me and my partner and my 1 yr old little girl very ill ; they don't even supply us with a bottled water while we are unable to drink the water in the taps.

I have worked for Southern Water for over a decade. It use to be a good company to work for that cared about its customers and employees.
Following the introduction of a new billing system (SAP) and a new management team it has become not a nice place to work. All customer services (letters/emails/web enquiries/automated phone lines/fax etc) has been out sourced and dealt with in Asia. The only exception is the call centre which is based in Worthing. Sadly since outsourcing, which is supposed to make the company more efficient etc., the service levels have gone done. The staff in the callcentre are suffering with very low morale. They use to enjoy their jobs and relish in providing excellent customer service but are unable to do much now except answer calls and pass enquiries out to Asia to be dealt with. Working in the callcentre used to be about providing excellent service, it's now all about statistics, Managers are only concerned about call numbers handled not quality provided, if you are found not to be achieving 10 calls per hour you face the prospect of disciplinary and eventually losing your job. We can only hope that one day Ofwat will take the trouble to speak to the staff rather than the management to get a true picture.

I have recently been at loggerheads with Southern Water over meter readings. Southern water say that my meter readings and estimates have been correct. I pay by direct debit, in may this year my payment was £12 a month. In June it increased to £16 a month. They are now asking for £25 a month. Am I thick or has something gone wrong with my readings. I am now not paying monthly but will pay at the last possible time before a court order. It makes sense for Southern Water to be truthful about my bill, it would save them money.

Over the last 20 years I have been paying my Southern Water bill with a set by them rateable value of £262 but I have found out that all my neighbours with the same house as mine built the same year by the same builder, and all looked the same in the year the rateable value was set in 1990, have the rateable value of £232, a much lower figure. I can not find any information about this error and the operators tell me that it can not be back dated due this error!! Who says? I have been overpaying for all these years and "they say they can not put this right or repay me back".

I am currently on hold to Southern Water. I have tried twice before to get through but never succeeded. In fact over three attempts I have been on hold for 97 minutes and it's still increasing. How many people work in their call centre? I'm getting very annoyed...

We had a sewage leak from mains blockage in public highway upon my return from honeymoon, of all things, so that was not very nice! SW's 'clearing up' service leaves a lot to be desired, and I've ended up with poo splattered all over my windows. Guess what? The supervisor meant to be available to talk to me at any time, suddenly not accessible and that I would have to write in! Silly girl on end of phone had no comprehension of the seriousness of a sewage leak - which was NOT my fault - and was even giggling when I told her how my house stank, my carpets were ruined, my garden destroyed, and that I'd had to take three days off work to wait in for various SW chaps to come and clear up. To take the biscuit, they even used my OWN hard brooms, so now they are contaminated too!!!! Has anyone had a sewage leak before and tried to sue SW, as opposed to going through insurance, since I don't know why I should be penalised when my premiums go up upon renewal! Any helpful advice would be most appreciated.

Many thanks

Myself and various members of the family have been trying to get our mother-in-law an account in her own name since the death of her husband in May 2007. She has been told on many occasions that a new payment card has been sent, but guess what? Nothing has turned up.

We have collectively spent hours on the phone. My last conversation barely ten minutes ago relayed to me tales of "technical problems"!!! She has now been promised payment slips and water card in 14 days. I could go and get it myself, it would be quicker.

Anyone living alone or elderly who has no help or back-up would be in dire straits if they had to try and sort it out themselves. Dreadful. 0/10.

I read that they have installed a 25m SAP system and it's all gone pear shaped - so much so that they sacked their Customer Services Director who was drafted in to sort out the SFO shambles. Not a great record if you ask me.

I have personal experience of the god awful customer service offered by this shower and read await with interest the amount of fine OFWAT are due to impose. Strangely, a few years ago when the company were supposedly at their worst, I had some of the best customer services of any utility - sign of the times - outsourcing etc.

Since I posted my previous comments about this company back in April there has been no solution to the problem of resolving my deceased mother's account with this company. They owe her estate £81.59 - not a fortune I accept but they ought to be able to sort this out without all this nonsense. I get lots of promises by the staff about what they will do but no action results.

In the words of Sir Alan Sugar "You're a total shambles."

The management team should start listening and implementing their own marketing hype and ensuring that they and their staff implement it.

I have just managed to speak to "Southern Water " customer services so maybe did a bit better than some of the above complaints, however our water had been turned off with no warning and unfortunately for the cancer patient I care for she was half way through being showered. No ideas when in day supply will be restored and have been informed that no provision exists for supply of bottled drinking water whilst no mains... Think customer dis-service would be a better name for company no...!

I have beeen trying to get an accurate bill for my Scout Group since January - emails and letters are ignored, I've spent pounds listening to their music on the phone, I eventually get promises of a bill, which arrives weeks later and again is wrong! They fail to call back when promised, they fail to pay the compensation the law requires. The worst company I have ever dealt with.

I agree with the comments so far on contact / service levels - I have never encountered a company who seems to care so little for their customers!!! I've tried emailing (6 or 7 emails with no reply - often not even a standard "we will get back to you" email received), phoning (again more than 6 times and never getting through). I finally received a bland standard letter a month later which never really addressed my concerns. When I tried to copy emails to investors@southernwater.co.uk to let the management know how bad the service was - they got rejected!!! Am now going to send a registered letter to Customer Service manager and company managing director to see what they have to say!!

Well i had been on the phone for almost half an hour when it was cut off. I am on the phone to them again now as im typing this and have been waiting for another half an hour so far. The music is driving me crazy. If they want to keep their customers then i suggest they answer their phones. To add to their rubbish service they are also expecting me to pay £465 a year for one person living in a one bedroom flat. I am not impressed with any of the services by southern water at all.

I've now been trying for more than 4 months (4 Emails + Attachments and many phone calls > 30mins wait) for answers to letter I submitted in early Jan 07 and which to date has not been answered. Customer Service is without doubt extremely poor and needs to be improved immediately if it is to meet it's own statement of 'Southern Water prides itself on offering high standards of customer care, they have a modern control centre and call centre dealing with 5,000 customer queries daily'.
Need I say anymore. Just give me an answer would be nice!

I to have had bad problems with southern water, i tried for 2 days to get through but i had to get to work, in the end i rang the consumer services who bless them did ring back, all this just query the amount i am paying for a 2 bed housing association flat! they reckon i should pay them £409 for the year! i'm a singe working parent who does not earn a lot so how do they justify that amount!
Well a female did ring me from southern water but i was at work and the message was she will ring me back sometime!
i will contact the consumer services again and then i will complain to ofwat!

As all of the above and no doubt many others, this service is disgraceful. I have aquestion to ask about my recent bill. I have spent in total one hour and twenty minutes trying to contact this company over three phone calls. I sent an e-mail as the phones do not get answered, still no reply.
If the phones are not being answered for some time then this needs to be rectified or a free number should be given instead. It does not take a genius to look at customer comments and work out what the problem is, this is just another lazy company charging people knowing that we cannot refuse to pay our bills, because of the rubbish service otherwise they will cut our water off.
The people in charge should stop being lazy, isten to their customers and sort the problem out.

You lot are lucky! At least you got through eventually. The phone lines are now constantly engaged. I just want them to send me a bill – It has been a year now since the last.

50 minutes.....I eventually got through - no point, though, because there are no supervisors or managers working on a Saturday and the nice young man I spoke to was, by his own admission, totally clueless. They operate at about 10% strength on Saturdays, and have about a 40 minute wait average. They make TalkTalk look great!

Like the person above I have been trying to obtain answers relating to my deceased mothers water account.

Have given up with the phone and am punting in e-mails. Since the 4th April I have received 3 different water accounts for 3 different periods and for 3 different amounts. All attempts to get a response is ignored by this dreadful company apart from an automatic answering device.

Hope they feel that as their bills are not being settled by my mothers executor they should open up the debt collection procedures !!!

Just who is in charge of this incompetent company ???.

i was most disapointed when trying to contact southern water as you are waiting ion the phones for at least half an hour before any one answer there is no time given saying how long you will have to wait amd there is no manager there before 9 o clock!!!!

Southern Water has no intention of letting
customers pay with credit card over the phone.They do not answer phone calls or answer E-mails.
All they do is promote direct debit.
Who is in charge of Southern Water customer services?
Actions speak louder than words. Southern water have many words on their Web site, customer service action rating 0

The customer service number 08452720845 for paying over the phone is the worst i have ever come acrosss no one ever there loads of pipe music and waffle