Decision Report 201301596

Summary

Mr C complained about Business Stream's handling of his account. He had wanted to change water supplier but could not as his account was not 'tradable'. (This is a particular status that a water or waste water connection must have in the market to allow a bill to be issued.) Mr C was unhappy with this and complained about subsequent delay by Business Stream in advising him that his account had been made tradable. He was also unhappy that Business Stream had applied a recovery charge, and had pursued recovery action when they had told him no action would be taken, given his circumstances.

We found that the delay in Mr C's account becoming tradable had prevented him from changing supplier, and that Business Stream delayed in telling him when his account became tradable. They had, however, apologised, removed the recovery charge and placed a credit on his account in recognition of the inconvenience caused to him. Business Stream had explained that they had made an initial recovery charge because they received incomplete information, and a payment Mr C had made had not been applied to his account. They had removed the charge after Mr C sent them information. We found no evidence that they had told him they would not take normal recovery action, when later payments were not made to his account.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• reinforce the apology and financial redress already offered to Mr C by crediting his account with 50 percent of the outstanding balance on the account.