Decision Report 201104141

Summary

Mr C complained about a bill he had received from Business Stream, and about their handling of his complaint. Mr C had disputed a meter reading, claiming that it was impossible for the amount of water billed to have been used. He had been told that his account would be put on hold. Despite this, Business Stream took full payment of the invoice. Business Stream then failed to investigate the matter, despite repeated requests from Mr C over two years. Neither did they investigate the complaint properly until we prompted them to do so.

We found that the passage of time meant that it was impossible for us to establish whether or not the disputed amount of water had been used. There were, however, significant failings by Business Stream in the way that they handled the complaint. Our recommendation for financial redress was calculated as a percentage of the bill, to reflect the poor service they had provided.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• apologise to Mr and Mrs C for the failings identified in our investigation; and
• pay Mr and Mrs C £450 by way of financial redress for the failings we identified.