Southern Water Reviews 

Unbelievable billing inefficiency. Told me my bank had cancelled monthly DD - untrue since Southern Water had not originated it properly following an increase. Then followed by 3 letters all inaccurate and out of date. Final one says account in credit but the balance needs immediate payment! Utter madness.

This company is the worst u have had to deal with. Want me to pay nearly 300 pounds for water every month in a house hold of 3 people, my children are in school and I am at work during the day. Who on earth is using the water? First received email then received a call, I disputed this and complained still not contacted by anyone, chased up today and was informed someone will call back and still nothing. Be very ashamed of yourselves, very poor customer service.

A company that seems proud to breach GDPR, attach your payment details to another persons account, add your name to an address you've never lived at - then harrass you for their error, lie to cover up their mistakes and best of all, charge you for the priviledge of operating like a bunch of cowboys. But why would they improve? Not like you have a choice to move to another company now is there!

another massive price hike in water bills almost doublled.

For what increwsingbpoor services, failures and disruption.

Data protection breaches,
Environmental breaches and fines.

How is a utilities company allowed to get away with all this and still hike customers bills

Southern water - you should be ashamed - Dirty Business has exposed you - money over people’s wellbeing! Shame on you! I object to you being my water supplier!

Would NOT trust anything they say....TV Drama highlights what we all think charge what they like do what they like.

In 2013 I had unfortunately moved to the Southern Water catchment area. The water I was getting from the taps stunk of sewage so I had to buy bottled water and do my laundry elsewhere, so I wasnt using a lot of water. Yet I still got charged an arm and a leg. I asked for help with water costs as I was disabled and on a low income. My pleas went ignored. Then, in August 2025 I was told by a friend that I could apply for reduced billing and she sent me the link. I applied and in August 2025 I was accepted. My billing should have been changed to the Essentials tariff. Its now nearly 7 months later, and as yet, I'm still waiting to be changed over to the cheaper tariff. What's more insulting is that I've also raised a formal complaint which is also being largely ignored. The person who is dealing with my complaint has sent me 2 emails, one of which is not readable due to their using a different format than my device uses, so I have had to ask for it to be sent in an email rather than an attachment. This means I'll have to wait months for that to be answered. They have told me that I'm using less than the average amount of water for a single person, but they say its around 100 to 120 litres a day. I keep all of my used water to flush my toilet with, and I struggle to fill a 40 litre bucket a day with used water, so I'm really not sure where they plucked 100 to 120 litres from. I don't do much washing as I have a larger machine, so its about 1 load a week. I also don't ingest the water as it stinks of sewage a lot of the time, so I buy bottled. I've asked if they actually come out to read the meters, or do they estimate. However, I haven't had a reply to that. I asked why a family of 3, living in a more expensive part of the area are paying a third of what I have to pay. They all shower, they have long hair, so it takes more to rinse out the shampoo and conditioner. They also cook with the tap water and drink their tap water. They do washing for three people. I also asked why another house only has to pay £10 a month when they're single but they shower or have a deep bath daily, water their garden daily, wash their car almost daily, has a dog they wash, and always has their washing machine going as they do washing for others. My bill is almost £35 a month, and I barely use anything. I havent had an answer to this question. I asked if it were possible they had got my meter mixed up with somebody else's, as they're all in a compartment under the pavement outside of the building where I live. They haven't answered that question. In fact, there were several more questions I asked, and they haven't answered a single one of them. On the plus side, they have finally added my name to the priority register. And I'm just SO grateful that all those shareholders aren't losing their money, and that their stocks and shares are still rising in price and making them richer whilst us mere mortals have to dodge drinking what smells like raw sewage. And I'm also SO, SO grateful that the CEO is still getting millions each year, because I would feel very unworthy of the title "FELLOW human being" if I thought for one second I was stopping that person from getting a decent wage for the hard work they put into making sure the rest of us get to drink god only knows what. The website never allows you to use its functions, the complaints form page never works, and, weirdly, even their email address wasn't loading properly when I emailed them recently, so they never got a few of my emails. When I looked into it, the email address was saved correctly in my contacts list, and I'd used it to correspond on behalf of my mother in around 2015, so why it suddenly stopped working is more than perplexing. I cant help but wonder what was going on with that. I had to remove them from my contacts list and re-enter the email address twice before it would work. And the leaks that get ignored... and we're all paying for them to ignore them. I'm thinking of just stopping my direct debit because they owe me money and I'm struggling to keep paying them for water I'm not using.
*Anybody out there who is struggling to get Southern Water to help them when they're supposed to, please go to the Conumser Council for Water and make a complaint, because if anyone deserves to be complained about, its this con-artist company! Less than useless.

I was totally gobsmacked when I recived my water bill , how can southern water justify a 47% increase it’s absolutely disgusting, where do they think we are going to find the money? it’s a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul

entire customer experience and website it soooooo incredibly bad, it ranks in line with british Airways, it's unreal, i cannot log in, cannot change my password, links are broken, unbelieveable.

Watch Channel 4 "Dirty Business." All about the water companies dumping raw sewage into our waterways and the sea. Also shows the Environment Agency being complicit in this. SHOCKING TO THE CORE.

Criminal extraction, decades paying profits to shareholders while the infrastructure fails, now they nearly double everyone's water bill to maintain shareholder dividends, literally taking food from children's mouths! The CEO is receives a £7 million annual salary, the business posts £97 million profits last year. Call the call centre and it's outsourced to Africa, go to the Dashboard and the dates are wrong, they send pay now messages for balances that are already paid.

Incapable of understanding English in their S African call centres, who give wrong information : Put on hold but do not resolve anything. : inadequate information on bills : give a false timeframe to reply to emails but NEVER achieve it !! : any emails from them are not accurate

Throughout the last four and half months I have had numerous phone calls and emails with Southern Water. Never have they replied to my emails within 5-days, their customer service promise. On the three occasions I phoned, they never did what they said they would do to resolve the issue of incorrect billing.

This is not a complicated story, I moved in to a new build in October, Southern Water had the wrong meter number. After sending an engineer in November, they agreed the water meter number I had was correct, theirs was not. But being hung up on the idea my meter had been replaced, they continued to bill me for another flats use. After a letter to their complaints department, they adjusted my account to my meter number and meter readings at the end of January.

I am one of eight flats, the other occupiers are going through the same process because Southern Water would only attend when individual account holders reported a problem. Some people are only being charged for sewerage and not water, others are not being charged at all, and some, like me, were being charged for another flats water.

My next battle is get the direct debit amount to reflect my usage and not an arbitrary amount that is three times what I am billed for.

Increased my bill from £45 to £122. Sent a complaint to Rickie Murphy from Head office who has totally ignored my complaint sending me the generic automated response as last time. Sent a document regarding, getting help if you can't/won't pay the bill. I know we don't use the water they are suggesting and have done the stupid tap test a number of times. I keep telling them that there must be another reason but they aren't interested. I'm also meant to be on a reduced rate, they sent me a letter days before confirming the reduced rate!!
They used to charge me for the neighbours water too so I have zero faith in them.
I know there's an issue!!! He has just ignored my concerns, not even mentioned the bill or payment options. I also contacted customer services who have also ignored my email. They couldn't give a toss. As an autistic/ADHD, severely depressed adult this is pushing me over the edge and they don't give a damn. I'm happy to agree a monthly sum, nowhere near there suggested amount but they have ignored that but they should also be investigating my complaint!! Absolute a- holes!! Tell you what, stop providing water to our house!!

Trying to pay the water bill, even then their website doesn't work.

This company are dangerous to the public it would be better if they just declared bankrupsy and just like ofwat disapear from jobs they clearly are not capable of carrying out. Instead of just stealing public money in what is agreed by everyone as being in a cost of living crisis. I would urge the government to take this company back into public ownership.

I have been chasing Southern water since August 2025 after finding out l have been paying for my neighbours water the last 14 years! a water meter was fitted to a water pipe at the end of my path and l was told it was mine by SW...this meter was taken off and a new meter fitted in August and my neighbour was then told it was her water pipe..
My pipe was located next to it a month later. I have been asking for a meter to be fitted ever since and also to ask them to look into my account for the last 14 years of what l have been paying. I have rang them and sent emails but the replies all say we are looking into it for you.its an automated reply..when l ring an adviser l am told will pass onto that dept but they won't put me through so l can talk to them myself! When l ring again they say we have no record of you ringing before!! It's a crazy situation...5 emails later and 3 calls still nothing!

Appalling lying, cheating, and corrupt and disingenuous from the CEO down.