Thames Water customer service!, What happens when it all goes Pete Tong... Options

[On the edge]

Poor old Thames Water! Major water supply fault in North Newbury this evening and a communications system failure at the same time. Calls to the main number were just given a bland 'we know there is a problem' message with an unfulfilled promise of an update later. Bad enough but not even a mention on the web site. Looks as if they had a massive ITC fail that even affected mobile phone calls from the field crews. Wonder how much it's going to cost to fix it?

[badmummajamma]

I've recently built a house in Newbury and, of all the utilities companies, Thames Water have been the most expensive, obstructive, slow and generally useless. Their customer service people are perfectly nice, but nothing ever gets done.

They've also ruined my fence and I ended up having to pay to repair a public sewer because they ignored me for so long!

I paid them more than £2k for permission to connect to a sewer and for permission for a new water connection (all the physical work was being undertaken by my own contractors at additional expense) and six months after the work was complete - I'm still waiting for the paperwork - having been told "it's in the post" three times.

SGN by comparison were brilliant - very helpful, flexible and cheap.

[On the edge]

An arrogant monopoly where public regulator has failed. We've been without water for 12 hours now so compensation payments should now kick in. What's the betting they'll claim this was two separate incidents.

[On the edge]

Apparently according to the Customer Enquiry service its down to high demand, so can't get the pressure back. 'Can't you send a loudspeaker van round asking for users to temporarily turn off' said I - 'oooh no, can't do that we haven't got a hosepipe ban' says she. Anyway, was assured it wasn't a burst. Web site has just changed and says it IS a burst main!!!! Presumably Customer Service staffs don't have access to on line information.

Spoke to the Regulator,you know, the people who are paid out of the public purse to represent us, the customers. Quite rude; she could have been my sister!

[Squelchy]

We've been without water for 12 hours now so compensation payments should now kick in.

Ah yes, the old 'compo culture'. Hello.

[On the edge]

Ah yes, the old 'compo culture'. Hello.

That is frankly offensive.

I do NOT want compensation and have sent such cheques back to organisations that send them. Monopoly organisations actually hide behind service standards; its far easier and cheaper to shell out a few grand in 'service failure charges' than it is to deliver a decent service. All I want is competence and accurate information - not too much to ask in 21st century.

I thought I was a cynic, but if your attitude is common, then its little wonder service standards in UK are so abysmal. I sincerely hope you never end up having to rely on one of the services as some people do.

NOTE - It seems the fault was with Cold Ash Reservoir. Some years back, we had a host of similar issues and after much irritating and time wasting prevarication we found that the root cause of the problem was the removal of equipment upgrades from the capital budgets, in spite of a massive increase ion demand due to new housing development. Yes, I was sent a cheque for one of the failures and yes it was sent straight back.

[MontyPython]

Ah yes, the old 'compo culture'. Hello.

That is frankly offensive. I do NOT want compensation ....

Maybe he thought you haven't washed like the character from "Last of the summer wine"

[Simon Kirby]

Quite rude; she could have been my sister!

[On the edge]

Maybe he thought you haven't washed like the character from "Last of the summer wine"

By yesterday afternoon I was; still managed to clear a queue in the Post Office quickly!