It promised to compensate customers who have been charged by their banks for a direct debit failure. The average combined water and sewage bill for a Southern Water customer is £418 a year. In a note to customers, Southern Water blamed a “missing zero” for the problem. We also made thousands of proactive calls to affected customers and posted on our social media and web pages in an attempt to reach as many customers as possible,” said Southern Water. Southern Water was fined £20m in 2007 by regulator Ofwat for misreporting data and poor customer service, and in 2013 was fined £200,000 for sewage discharges.

Source: The Guardian October 21, 2016 14:36 UTC