Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water Reviews 412

What we can all expect now from this outfit is a "post office" type scandal. The negative reviews on here back up what I have just experienced on the phone when trying to cash in on my credit balance. What they scared of?
Out of 4 experiences with their customer service only one wanted to actually help...3 years ago.

Most people complain here because Dwr is indeed overcharging and as a single provider for Wales, takes full advantage of it.
They seem to falsely advertise the DD payments (for people struggling to pay in a full instalment, hence the most affected by cost of living) as 'spreading your bill over instalments at no extra cost' but this is misleading and appears an incorrect commercial practice - the DD's are exorbitant estimates, much more than your actual due bill amount - money cashed in on what they believe you consume, in advance for a product you haven't used yet - but it should be at a modic price anyway, as a natural free resource for all and of course... 'not for profit' .
If you get trapped in DD payments you could pay astronomical prices and it's very hard to get out of the contract and insist to pay based on actual meter reading - very high anyway and doubtfully accurate.
My bill for the last 6 months is around £400 if paid in full, about 71.57/month but over £800 if paid in monthly instalments of £110 - I tried to see what happened if I went with their DD choice but have not selected it.
Knowing this cannot be a fair commercial practice and is also falsely advertised, as 'at no extra cost' when in fact we pay in advance as if it was with interest - why don't people complain or report this to the regulator, Ofwat directly? Dwr will otherwise carry on doing this forever and would not admit any wrongdoing.
You can contact them at:
Ofwat
City Centre Tower, 7 Hill Street
Birmingham
B5 4UA

Phone: 0121 644 7500
Fax: 0121 644 7559
Email: please google it, not allowed on trustpilot

I want to pay my bill and their website is down AGAIN.

You then try and contact their helpline. This takes forever. The respondent then claims that their website is not down - they then check and ... it is down.

This has happened 4 times so far. Exactly the same pattern. And I am trying to pay them.

Why is the CEO paid £300K+?

Really poor indeed.

You took so long to reply to my initial messenger message, that I was forced to call your customer service team and after being on hold, forever, (fortunately, the call was free), I managed to get an answer to both of my queries.

Oh and please don't even get me started on your ridiculously repetitive security and identity checks.

How come your Live Chat facility was down?
Again!

Unfortunately, unlike with energy and mobile providers, we, here in Wales, cannot switch water companies.
If we could, I would!

Do NOT pay by DD, they vastly overcharge holding huge amounts of your money. V poor service, frequent water outages, pump or discoloration problems.

Tried to pay my bill every day last week, but 'seems we have a problem'. Then, yesterday, came an e-mall saying they have not had my payment.

Keep sending unecessary emails & if you contact them they say they will respond in 40 days &do not do so

Such a con.

Forced to use this company who overcharge and make it incredibly difficult to change a normal direct debit. Should be able to choose your own company.

I had a toilet that was leaking from the flush - I contacted "Cartref" run by Dwr Cymru and they duly came along after a few days repaired it and serviced the other two loos in our house all completely free of charge - What an amazing service 10 out of 10

Spoke to Lauren twizell today. She made me feel so comfortable with my anxiety on phoning people and helped me save extra a month. Would like to thank her so much for putting up with me

So we had a debt letter saying we owed quite a big amount to welsh water. This was obviously a shock as i have always paid my water every month for the past 3/4 years. Turns out the new tenant in my old address had not been paying. After a worrying and stressful 24 hours and a couple of phone calls it was wiped as it was clearly not our bill to pay. I must say the customer service we had off Courtney was amazing. She put my mind at ease and i felt like she was with me not against me. She also had the patience of a saint whilst me and my mother were worrying. Massive thank you to Courtney for your help and for looking into our case/accounts. Hopefully you will get the recognition you deserve x

Amazing lovely staff but I JUST WANT MY WATER METER READ as i moved in 2 months ago and cannot read it. There was a leak before i moved in & possibly now, i just wanted confirmation of this. This has been ongoing for this amount of time. I even had a WW guy in my house testing the water quality. He couldn’t read the meter as it wasn't his job. Just come off the phone to another friendly staff member to no avail. My 5 phone calls and many wasteful hours have not got me anywhere. In the meantime i will pay my bills on time and the service WW will provide is pretty pants. It should be simple but what do i do?!?!

If I could give a zero star review I would.
Absolutely disgraceful service.
Left us, a family of five without water for 36 hrs.
We had a burst, but Dŵr Cymru were adamant that the burst was 7 miles away,even though that was a different supply.
The men on the ground were fantastic, but there needs to be a shake up higher up the chain of command.
Gwarthus.

What went wrong this time? It's an ongoing nightmare. Having spent the last 3 years explaining that a single person with minimal water use does not use 80 cubic meters in a six month period and following up with photographs of a clearing leaking pipe around the water meter, I finally manage to get an engineer out in Jan. They forget to turn the water back on. The second one comes out and gives me a new ebcu, admits that there is a leak in the pipe and turns the water back on.

I get correspondence apologising and offering a substantial rebate. March, all ok and the meter measures under 30 cubic meters of water usage.

September and a new billing system. Suddenly all the correspondence is lost apart from my welcome letter in 2020 and the rebate has dropped from hundreds to £10. There is no log of my payments before Sept 2022. I am charged 81 cubic meters across the summer! It's an estimate despite my water meter being outside of my property with easy access, and a supposed log somewhere of the previous issues and average use.

So the same poor customer service and ripping off customers AGAIN. Please can you sort this out. It has been 3 years of me having to chase you and I shouldn’t have to check my bills to see if you have your house in order.

We have a cost of living crisis and you are trying to charge me, a single person with minimal water use, for 3 x the average. You rely on your customers to spot your mistakes and god knows how many you get away with. If someone finds an issue you go out of your way to make it difficult for them. Your brand is at total odds with the customer experience and it is not on.

You ask ‘ How can this company improve, be honest’ ?
Those in control of this company are deceitful and dishonest, dismiss all, and start again. They answer to none. If Privatised, we would all benefit, service would improve and water rates would be reduced.
I dare those in charge to challenge my remarks, concerning management ( I will gladly submit facts in any court ). Note- if you remove ‘ Monmouth, flood reviews’ Welsh Water would average two stars.

Closing down my account and settling the final bill was a dream over the phone with a lovely agent after I struggled to do it online. Amazing customer service especially compared with some awful experiences with other service providers.

After being them for over 6 years I changed my email. You would think that is straight forward but it is nothing short of pathetic. To change my email on the Welsh Water site I was told to cancel my account and then leave it 10 days and then sign up again with my new email. They got back to me asked for a reading and gave me the update of my account balance and the payment plan ahead at my new email address . That should be that, but oh no! 8 days later I get an email on my old email address asking for a reading. Are they really stupid or what? I tried ringing to sort it out but nobody answers. What should be an easy task becomes ridicluous. Who makes up these rules?

Workmen came to fit a neighbours meter today , I advised them the bin lorry was due anytime to collect waste and to move the van to opp side of road as there were cars parked opp his van.fell on deaf ears binmen could not get in so they left all the waste and recycling.WW no common sense

They opened an account in my name for a house I haven't lived in for 2 years (I live in a completely different country). My family moved out last year. They said they ran a credit report on me and because I had a bank account linked to the address (obviously) they opened an account in my name, without my permission, which they are allowed to do. This company is a CON. They keep sending me letters for a total of £180 (their estimate) which covers 8 months, WHICH OBVIOUSLY PROVES THE HOUSE IS UNOCCUPIED. I have told them repeatedly the house is owned by a housing association and possibly has new tenants (I am assuming house finally has new tenants since they have sent me a "final" bill).

They want me to send them proof of my new address and proof how long I've been living here, latter which is impossible. Knowing how this company conducts themselves, I told them I will not be giving them my new address so they can send the bills directly to my new address and know where I live for them to take action saying I owe them money for a property I HAVEN'T LIVED IN SINCE YEARS AGO AND NEVER HAD ANY BILLS IN MY NAME THERE. The woman confirmed that I was correct that they would contact me "in other ways" if I were to provide my address.

So, to summarise, haven't lived there in 2 years, they are allowed to run credit checks on you without your permission and open accounts in your name without your permission. They then harass you for money you don't owe, send you bills with "estimates" that prove the property is unoccupied, continue to harass despite proof the property is not owned by you but in my case by a housing association. Now sending me a final bill for £180 (all the differently dated bills they've sent have been for the EXACT SAME AMOUNT) when someone has moved in, again clearly proving I don't live there. Then the cheek to try and obtain my new address to take action against me.

THIS IS HARASSMENT. ANYMORE LETTERS AND I WILL BE TAKING THIS FURTHER. I AM VULNERABLE AND IT'S BEYOND BELIEF YOU'RE ALLOWED TO HARASS PEOPLE FOR MONEY THEY DON'T OWE & OPEN ACCOUNTS IN PEOPLE'S NAMES WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE OR PERMISSION.