South West Water Reviews 

Absolutely useless! They lie and don’t communicate at all! No water for 5 days and they just lie !

If I was a South west water customers I would cancel my direct debits & raise a complaint with ombudsman about their appalling service.

We lived in location A for 8 years. We set up a direct debit to pay these crooks.
The current situation is thus.

The direct debit stopped when we found out we were in credit - by hundreds of pounds -and asked to have that back. They said, "ok, we will send out a meter reader to verify you are in credit" - they never did.
But the direct debits were stopped until they did.
So we weren't paying them. But nobody talked to us, emailed us, sent us a letter and there certainly were no readers out - at any point - to verify anything.

FIVE YEARS LATER - closer to 6 - we moved locations, which caused our account to close. September 6, we arrived at Place B, where we now live. November 18, I call them about a letter of demand for 1914 pounds. They tell me this is unusual, it's because they've had no readings from us (Because *they* weren't doing their jobs) and that it was a system estimate (So a completely random number, gotcha).
They said they'd put a hold on the account payment and investigate and I'd hear back within 14 days.
Nobody called, emailed, or wrote.

Today, January 7th, I get a letter from them still asking me for 5 years worth of money all at once.
I call them.
I tell them the same thing.
Okay, they will escalate an investigation to some team or another and I should hear back within 1-2 weeks so I can get a *portion* of this amount let go as a good faith gesture or something? They f***ed up 3 separate times!

1) The bloke never did the reading, and *we* didn't stop the direct debit. THEY DID.
2)They never contacted us during the many months to take readings (Which also wasn't our job), or sent a bloke around and ADMITTED to this - they said there should have been someone around every (at least?) 2 years. Nobody for 5 means they missed 2, potentially 3 necessary visits.
3)At no point during sixty plus months were we emailed about apparently an increasing amount of money they weren't receiving. No emails, no calls, no letters through the box, nothing. We thought everything was fine, ffs!

Current situation : Waiting on this escalated team to lowball us and still demand at least 70% of this amount, but more likely 80% despite the entire situation being not only their fault, and not only ONE of their fuckups, but *three* separate instances of total, basic service failure over years.
If they act arsy, it's the ombudsman and the media for me with this. Absolutely unacceptable.

How is the company even allowed to operate? Absolute cowboys in terms of billing and payments. Advise everyone to check all new bills since new billing system was introduced last year. They no longer itemise monthly direct debits and going back over the last year, I’ve found several were missing from my bill, despite clearly showing on SWW’s payment records.
Clearly a botched system, that they’ve introduced, any other company I would switch, but wait these sharks have a total monopoly so I can’t! Now in my second month of waiting for them to reply to my email, get all the details wrong and then I have to start again.

Where do I even start this this shower( no pun intended). I sent them an email Nov 2025 querying my bill and the sudden increase from a monthly payment of £26 to £43.50. Had an auto reply,"we aim to respond within 10 days". No reply by mid Dec. Then had a great bundle of paying in slips for the increased amount. I sent another email asking why such a large increase and can they give me a justifiable reason for it. End of Dec and still no reply. As I am not a whatsapp user I decided to call them. To say that they were next too useless would be a understatement. Having spent over 15 mins trying to get the lady to understand what I wanted, she advised me that she would put me through to a manager. I waited another 15 mins approx but it just kept ringing. Having taken the decision to hang up, I sent a complaint in the form of a third email. Until SWW have the common decency and courtesy to provide me with a response, I will not be paying them anywhere near their vastly increased sum. I will not be bullied and brow beaten by this bunch of cowboys. I hope that many more of their customers take the same stance and say enough is enough. I pay my water bill/s on time and have never missed a payment. I will not be treated like something they have trodden in.

Expensive and undrinkable. Used same amount as last quarter and bill is up £50. No idea how as I put a brick in the toilet system. Water tastes awful at times. Daylight robbery and no other supplier to use.

DESIGNED TO FAIL. I decided to take advantage of a SWW "offer" of free water saving devices which entailed taking a survey.
Having done this I could choose the free items 0/1 or 1/1 for each one. Having no idea what this meant I tried to call a customer service number (there are none for general enquiries). After a 4 minute wait a recorded message told me that I was 10th in the queue.
As the department I was calling would have been unable to help, anyway, I hung up.
I concluded that the whole exercise was just a PR stunt and designed so that it would be impossible to obtain anything.

South West Water are installing new water meters. I don't have a problem with this, but they are doing this in a way that, in my opinion, puts more vulnerable members of society at risk, with unexpected strangers knocking on doors.

My experience with this company has been deeply unsatisfactory. The service is poor, characterized by unannounced outages that leave customers without critical services and with no information or updates provided on the company website.

Furthermore, the conduct of the company's engineers is completely unacceptable. They were rude, abusive, and disrespectful. This behavior reflects poorly on the company as a whole and drastically reduces customer confidence. Service quality needs immediate attention, and employee conduct requires serious review.

They just billed me £3000 for2 months . I was not home for those months. Water was not being used . I live on my own on 1 bedroom flat. I asked the lady on call to give me the meter readings that they have taken so that I will compare with what I have right now. It was different . When I asked why would they do something like that she said it was a mistake. This is fraudulent company. Stealing from vulnerable people and they do not show any remorse at all. This company should do better.

I received a quarterly bill for £202, sewerage charges included. SWW call this wastewater on the bills! My waste water goes directly into a communal tank on site (I’m in a park home). The rest of the bill was estimated & told me I was using the equivalent of 3 baths a day. Cost £89. I live alone & don’t even have a bath, just a shower. Obviously I use it, wash up, do laundry. But 3 baths a day equivalent?? No no no!
I tried, with the help of a friend to read the meter. The meter space was flooded, we baled it out, the plastic above the dial was cracked, making the figures impossible to read. I wrote to SWW, a proper letter, don’t try to ring, you’ll just get stuck in hopeless queues. I enclosed photos of the state of the meter. I received another bill, sewerage charges removed, but still estimated at 3 bath fulls a day, £89, no comment on the state of the meter.
I wrote another letter. Finally a phone call, based on previous usage my bill had gone down to £78 for a quarter. They tell me the meter should give automatic readings, why then are they estimating? But as it’s clearly impossible to read, they’ve referred it to the maintenance department to be repaired or replaced.
My point! If you don’t check your bills, read the small print & don’t act for yourself SWW may overcharge & I can’t help but wonder how many vulnerable people get scared & pay what they’re told to. From £202 down to £78 is a big difference!
Please read your bills carefully & query them if you’re not happy. If they’re continuously estimated insist they read the meter. Check you don’t have a central waste water tank, especially if you live on a park home site.
I gave 2 stars because I did finally get a result & the lady was polite & helpful. But, SWW are still really not performing well & I know it’s been going on for years!

Uncontactable. Phone on hold forever, what's app, on hold forever.
Finally got through. (45mins).Complete waste of time yet again, 17 months after initial contact about the issue.

You dont want to work here I worked here for 8 months and it was bad people dont get to take lunches or breaks and the managers get to all doss and take multiple lunches and breaks and chatting away and theres too much family everyone is related to each other so if you got no family there or know anyone you won't progress theres no room for progression anyway they made that clear

Got a letter out of the blue with red flavour text demanding payment, which I am more than happy to make when I am able.
Followed a week letter with a threat about an enforcement agency.
My agreement with them is to pay half the bill every 6 months, this hasnt changed.
A polite reminder is all that is required here. Not threats.
No stars.

Contacted customer support as SWW have been charging us for waste water disposal since January 2022, but we have our own sewage treatment plant and we are 5 miles from the nearest public sewer (they were notified of this in January 2022 and then on various occasions).
Here we are November 2025 yet again contacting customer support by phone and email re the same matter. 15 days have passed and still no response. Contacted customer support again today (7/11/2025) and eventually the line was answered by their operative in the Philippines (really no need to have call services on the other side of the world) who yet again gave the same “bull” that the problem would be rectified (yep she didn’t have a clue about our ongoing problem).

SWW show absolute contempt for their customers and do not respond.

I’m dismayed by their poor standards of service and lack of customer care

Dumping our waste water into rivers and streams. Paying massive bonuses to shareholders and the corporate team. Last CEO Susan Davy jumped ship when she could face criminal prosecution for her 19 years of environmental failings and funneling our money offshore. CRIMINALS!

If I could give minus stars I would.

Their plumber fitted a valve which is now leaking. Call handler Steve Thomas was ride, obstructive, alleged I’m lying about the name of the plumber they provided was who attended my house. Refused to let me speak to a manager. Told me leak can stay till tomorrow. This company are shocking and should be shut down!!!

No one is going to believe this . My water bill
Jumped from £60 to £400 . After nearly 2 years of fight , finally they found the mistake on their side of billing. Still waiting to recover my money . A disgusting company and its policies are crap . Poor service and they scam
People. They owe £4000 for 2 years .

Joshua dealt with my enquiry with politeness and professionalism. Thank you.

Appalling customer service as they keep you hanging on the phone for almost an hour before they answer! Not only that, they pour untreated, raw sewage into our bathing water - even on days when there isn't torrential rain.

If you use a hose to water the garden, you get charged for all that water going down the sewer - even though it doesn't go down the sewer. Morally bankrupt!