Business Stream

Summary

Mr C complained about the high level of charges on his company’s account since the installation of a water meter. He also complained that Business Stream had unreasonably invoiced his company for unmeasured charges before the meter was installed, and had added penalty charges while he was in dispute with them about the invoices.

As a result of our investigation, Business Stream told us that they were satisfied that it was correct to backdate Mr C’s company’s account. However, they had found that the date it was backdated to was wrong and he had been billed for a period before the account was opened. They had also found that they had not investigated the matter previously. We upheld the complaint, but we were satisfied that Business Stream had already provided redress through a goodwill gesture that reduced the balance on Mr C’s company’s account.

On the complaint that there had been an unexplained high level of usage since the meter was installed, there was no evidence to suggest that there had been a ‘spike’ in the usage, which would suggest a problem. As Business Stream offered to look further at the matter if Mr C could provide evidence to the contrary, we decided that there was no further action for us to take.

The complaint about penalty charges being added was resolved as Business Stream removed the recovery charges, and, in view of the inconvenience caused to Mr C, credited his account with a payment.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream: apologise to Mr C for not investigating the matter when he raised it with them as a complaint.

Related reading

View Decision Report 201203012 as a PDF (12.29 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018