Decision Report 201302519

Summary

Mr C complained that Business Stream failed to bill him correctly for his water use. Our investigation found that there had been a number of errors in the bills issued to him. His meter had been exchanged, but there was a delay in issuing bills based on the readings from the replacement meter. When this was corrected, Business Stream used the wrong rate for his waste water charges. This brought about a significant increase in Mr C's bills over the next two years. However, when this was corrected, a further bill was issued based on an incorrect meter reading. In view of these errors, we upheld Mr C's complaint. However, we were satisfied that Business Stream had corrected the errors before Mr C brought his complaint to us. They had written to him to apologise and explained that they used complaints to improve the service they provide. They also credited a payment to Mr C's account as a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience that the matter had caused him.

Mr C also complained that Business Stream had not handled his complaint appropriately. We found that they had responded to the issues Mr C had raised, but had delayed in issuing the response. In their update letters, they had provided timescales for responding that they were then unable to meet. However, they had apologised for the delays. Although we upheld Mr C's complaints, we did not find it necessary to make any recommendations in view of the action that Business Stream had already taken.