General Chat

If you are with Anglian Water and pay your bill by weekly payment book, this might affect you. Read on below:

My replacement payment book never arrived and several phone calls later, Anglian have admitted that a number of books were not sent out (their problem). They advised that the next book will start at the end of July but that the weekly rate will go up to ensure it gets paid in their billing year. While this doesn't affect the overall annual cost, this £2.50 per week rise would have been impossible for us to cover in our weekly budget. The water bill already swallows up over 10% of our weekly income (and, yes, we did consider switching to water metering but were not impressed by Anglian Water's criminal treatment of a friend whose meter was clearly faulty.) I argued the case and succeeded in getting them to extend the billing period so we can continue to pay the same weekly amount we are already paying. If you find yourself in the same situation, good luck.

nudged in case it is relevent to anyone

Just put the phone down to my best friend, who was upset about not getting a payment book from Anglian water, and after calling them they told her they'd sent her book out, it would take 3 weeks to print a new book for her, and she'd have to pay a big all the weeks she'd missed on her next payment (which she can't afford). Then I came here and saw your message - have phoned her back and she's going to call them again on monday and have a right moan, because its obviously not just her not getting a book, and see if they can let her spread her payment a bit which would be better for her. Cheers, Nadine

thanks for putting this up. My mum often has trouble with her books but she is on a meter but not sure who her water is with. Shall have to keep an eye open for thisone.

Contact your local paper and name and shame - there are probably lots of people who have allowed themselves to be browbeaten by Anglian Water because they are not strong enough to fight back. Liz

Dont want to be awkward here but the weeks you didnt have your book didnt you put the money away out of your budget so that it was there when the book arived. Also couldnt you pay by direct debit where the money is stopped out of a bill account Just a thought Linda

Yes I thought that too, Linda, and even offered to pay Anglian Water through my internet banking set-up if they provided me with the correct account details. They expressly told me NOT to attempt to pay as it would muck up their system and I could end up being chased up for payments that I had in fact made. My last weekly installment was due last Monday and I only noticed the book had run out when I went to get it out of my admin drawer. Even the post strike shouldn't have delayed the book that long so I phoned Anglian immediately. The somewhat vacant woman (sounded a bit like the 'Computer says No' lady from Little Britain!) said to phone them back on Friday if the book hadn't arrived. So I did. I find it hard to believe that Anglian hadn't realised much sooner they had not actually printed nor sent out a whole load of replacement books. If they'd told me on Monday, I'd have been a lot happier. Anglian Water can get very nasty if you miss as few as 2 consecutive payments, which I did once as I was too ill to get to the post-office. I received a letter threatening court action if I did not pay immediately plus the usual warning about cutting off my water supply. Back to the suggestion to put money aside. I had thought of that too. It would have been easy enough for me to have put the allocated weekly water money in a tin and handed over the full backlog once the new payment book was ready and then carry on paying my set weekly amount as before. Unfortunately Anglian advised me this would not work, as their system could not be overridden. Effectively they have stopped taken payments for a month from those of us affected (how many, I wonder?) and are squeezing 28 weeks worth of payments into 24 weeks, which raises the weekly payment amount to beyond my weekly budget. Theoretically I could take the extra money out of the tin for this months set-aside payments but keeping unused money aside for 24 weeks without the kids or myself finding a better use for it is not realistic in this household :-) When you are on a limited set weekly income and manage through strict budgeting, a 25% rise in one weekly outgoing for 24 weeks impacts on the entire household budget. It can knock you into a spiral of debt very quickly! If you are similarly affected argue! Argue! Argue! Anglian Water has no right to make their problem our problem. I wonder, if in 2 weeks time, I shall receive a letter threatening me for non-payment??

No what I meant was if you had put the money aside you would have had it there to pay the extra that they asked for each week Or pay by direct debit Linda