bournemouthwater.co.uk Reviews 18

Water bills fail to clearly show direct debit detail breakdown (just a total). Does not show DD amounts or dates taken. Contacted Customer service, but vague and not really interested and directed me to their Customer Promise & Charter. However, Bournemouth water fails to be accurate with their bills, by excluding direct debit breakdowns, so impossible to check accuracy from bill. Also fails to meet Ofwat's transparency guidelines. This affects ALL Bournemouth Water (& South West Water) bills ! ...so millions of people. Other companies such as for gas, electric, broadband and Wessex Water show direct debit details breakdown. Just Bournemouth Water & South West Water are unprofessional by not doing this and not being transparent (or deceptive ?). Bournemouth Water start acting like a professional company !

I’ve made a formal complaint because I know that I won’t be the only one with issues and this needs to be dealt with.
Bournemouth water give readings to Wessex water who does our sewerage. We’ve only come to realise today after taking our own reading that our meter has been estimated for over a year. Nobody from BW has checked it. So because of this our bills from WW have gone up so much. They thought we had a burst pipe. We were advised to do our own checks and read the meter. A job they should be doing themselves. On top of this the customer service is so bad, being put on hold in the Philippines for ages.The woman kept repeating,hold on,hold on. I was put on hold so many times. All this stress because BW can’t come and read the meter, not to mention the amount of money that we’ve been overcharged for a year.

If you want to experience DREADFUL outdated IT systems then this is the place for you.
Absolutely dreadful. Hope they are better at looking after our water!

be aware that if you have a dead relative Bournemouth water will change the account number at some stage and in doing so trapping money they are not entitled to in the old account that they closed at the time of their choosing , Bournemouth water chose whether to close that account and exactly when to do it and choose exactly how much money they trap in the account . So long as that sum of money trapped by their chosen actions is less than £250 ( a years water in some cases ) they do not have to account for any money in the old account they close and the new bill with the new number will start at zero and you will have to pay ( although they have had money in the account before they closed it ) and so Bournemouth water get to keep that money in the old account. So if you have a dead relative you need to be aware of this and assume that money is trapped in the old account and insist on its return or migration . I had this problem and went to the statutory protectors of customers and it took months , the reply in arbitration bizarrely - taking it far beyond the £250 retention level of Bournemouth water itself is that unless I specifically ask for the money back in 20 days then Bournemouth water get to keep it and that would be £280 Bournemouth water get to keep for themselves , so a gift for no service to Bournemouth water so obviously it will be requested back

Try sending the bills out ,we just got a red reminder, never received an actual bill !

What a joke the call handling is. It took ages to get an answer and then spoke to a woman who could hardly speak or understand English and clearly had no idea what she was doing. The conversation went round in circles and was going nowhere. Eventually I had to give up. Apparently there was nobody else that I could speak to.
I phoned back and eventually got through to a man who was more knowledgeable and spoke better English. (The call centre is in the Phillipines) He addressed my account query well and was very helpful. In total, what should have taken 2 minutes, took about an hour. Disgusting service from Bournemouth Water.

My 73-year-old mother, who has osteoporosis and is currently on crutches following a fractured ankle, has been without running water at her home in Northbourne, Bournemouth since Friday 17 October 2025.

Within the last ten days, Bournemouth Water carried out works outside her property (new tarmac laid around the water meter). Since then, her water supply has been cut off completely. This means she cannot safely return home — she is unable to use the toilet, bathe, or even make a cup of tea.

Despite reporting this immediately, Bournemouth Water have failed to attend all weekend and have offered no temporary assistance (no bottled water, no engineer visit, no emergency support). When contacted, their staff stated that because she was “not currently resident in the property,” the job was not a priority. The only reason she is not resident is because she has no water due to their own works.

This morning (Sunday 19 October), Bournemouth Water confirmed an engineer would attend at 9:30 a.m. I travelled seven miles from my home address to meet them as my mother is unable to walk or drive, only to receive another call at 9 a.m. cancelling the visit on the same grounds — that “no one was at the property.”

My mother is elderly, disabled, and clearly vulnerable. It is deeply distressing that a utility company entrusted with an essential service can show such disregard for duty of care and basic compassion. There has been no apology, no urgency, and no understanding of the impact this has had on her physical and emotional wellbeing.

At the very least, Bournemouth Water should:

Urgently restore her water supply;

Offer a written apology for their handling of this incident;

Review their procedures for identifying and assisting vulnerable customers.

This experience has completely destroyed our trust in Bournemouth Water’s ability to treat elderly or disabled customers fairly and with dignity.

It's difficult to find a good word to say about Bournemouth Water. They seem to have redefined the word incompetent and taken it to new unchartered depths.

I have tried talking to them via WhatsApp and I waited and waited and twenty hours later, (yes really) I had a reply. My response was to ask them politely to forget it as I had given up on them.

Some days later I tried again, this time on the phone, and ended up speaking to someone in the Philippines!!

Their bills, while colourful, are unfathomable and leave me more confused than ever. I have taken to supplying my own meter readings to make sure the bill is accurate.

Still trying to think of something good to say...........I suppose their logo is nice.

Two unsuccessful attempts at contacting customer service at Bournemouth Water by telephone - gave up after waiting in excess of 40 minutes the first time and after 30 minutes the second. Totally unacceptable.

I called their designated number 4 times this morning to report petrol smell in our tap water, each time waiting 15-20 minutes to get to speak to an operator, but nobody picked up the phone. I guess bunch of people will have to be poisoned since I HAVE A LIFE! and I HAVE TO MAKE A LIVING! so I can't be on the phone all day! It's on you Bournemouth Water! You're charging us for RAIN WATER, and don't even hire someone to answer the calls...

Notified Bournemouth Water online I was moving address. When asked if I'd like to provide a reading or get an estimated bill I chose the latter as I live in a block of flats and don't have access to the water meter.

A week later I receive a letter saying as I will be moving home I need to provide a meter reading! Tried to call to discover I was 12th in line. So I messaged on WhatsApp and 24 hours later and long pauses in between communication, I was told where the meter was located! Duh.

Tried to get in touch again and it is impossible to get hold of anyone so I look forward to the battle when the new tenant begins using water and Bournemouth Water haven't closed my account!

No-one available to read the meter and no-one available to answer customer's calls it seems!

Absolutely disgusting customer service. Phoned in the morning to discuss my bill, 8 th in line but cut off when I got to 4th in line. Phoned back and am 9th in line got cut off again at 4th in line. Decided to try the WhatsApp message at 2.14pm and was told someone would reply in a few minutes. At 4.30 someone replied and we discussed the issue and had almost reached a solution when she says ‘I have reached the end of my working day so going to close the conversation’ I was left waiting for someone else to take over which didn’t happen until 11.30 the next day. No apologies and they just acted like it was a perfectly normal way to deal with a customer. Disgusting way to treat someone and I still do not have a resolution.

Called 01202 590059 customer care again today and managed to finally get through after 34 mins.I wanted to know why my bill has increased by 52% ilo of the 32% as advised by Water UK. The call was a total waste of time as the calls are handled by a call centre in the Philippines who are totally unable to help wasted another 6 mins talking to the handler who promised to talk with UK manager, after another 6 mins she came back obviously with no contact there and waffled for another few minutes with no explanation again finally I closed the call at 51 mins.
Calling the 01202 No is a waste of time. a 1 star rating is far too high for this non existent customer service. I received my bill on the 29th March with a request for payment of 1st April. What a shambolic organisation.

Water Mains burst outside our house and two people yesterday morning 6th Mar 2024 opened up a great big hole and the water was pouring out and now the flow of water is increasing. They shut the road in a cul de sac area and NO ONE is fixing it today. It's trouble moving your cars around the area now as have to reverse and nowhere to do this. This company is a joke as the people who cut out the hole should finish the water mains pipe but really they can't be bothered!!
No one really and especially not you Bournemouth Water. I didn't want to give a single star, but I had to...should have been 0.

Go very careful everyone Bournemouth water and Wessex water are scamming us, September 2022 moved into new premises on a estimate reading as both companies share same meter on leaving premises in January 2024 went to submit reading only to discover that meter was blank on reporting this to Bournemouth and Wessex were told engineer would fix it, 2 weeks later still not fixed and was told that they couldn’t fix it and would have to pay final bill on estimate reading, on explaining that this isn’t satisfactory was more or less told tough luck and what did i expect them to do about it.
If anybody has any ideas where I can go with this please let me know

I tried to give a final meter reading, as like with many others I'm being forced into homelessness. I think they've changed the phone system as it's all automated and really annoying. It said I had to redial using a different number which wasn't repeated, so had to go around the system again in order to try to get it. Then after waiting quite a while I got someone who didn't speak great English and who didn't really understand me. I mean, what has this country come to? Then he called me back saying I have to register for an online account just so I can view my final bill as they can't email it. What an absolute joke. If only the government hadn't sold all our services off then we wouldn't have to use all this corporate woke nonsense.

I can choose who supplies my gas. I can choose who supplies my electricity. I can choose who supplies my phone line. Why can't I choose who supplies my water? Bournemouth Water make so much money overcharging their customers that they had to give everybody a credit on their bill last year.
Bournemouth residents have to pay Bournemouth Water to supply their water and Wessex Water for their waste water. What a rip off! Two bills instead of one!