1600 apologies for double-dip

Photo / Greg Bowker

Auckland's monopoly water company has apologised to 1600 new customers for double-debiting their bank accounts - before even sending out its first water bills.

Watercare Services became the country's largest water company last Monday, when it took over the retail water operations of Auckland local authorities as part of Super City reforms.

Overnight, its customer base went from the six local network operators to 430,000 bill-payers.

Part of the $26 million budget for integrating the region's water and waste-water services was spent on building a new electronic billing system, which by November 1 was to contain all the customer data from the old operators.

This included customers who had a direct debit arrangement with the old Franklin District Council to "drip-feed" payment of their water bills weekly or fortnightly.

"The system didn't recognise that the council took out money just before the handover, and on November 2, Watercare's system took out another lot," said spokesman Owen Cook.

"The amounts taken were small, and with the BNZ's help we reversed all transactions and put the money back by the same evening."

Mr Cook said the company acted swiftly to correct matters after a phone call from an affected customer, and had sent out 1600 letters of apology.

Former Waitakere Ecowater customers have the same drip-feed arrangement but Mr Cook said they were not affected.

The mistake was a double-whammy for those customers who could least afford it, said Olive Matheson, who is family finance team leader for Franklin Family Support Services.

"They would be paying between $10 and $25 weekly towards water costs but it makes a difference.

"They are paying on a weekly or fortnightly basis because they are on very limited incomes.

"I hope banks won't charge fees to people who have overdrawn on Tuesday morning because they did not know about the double payment."