{"id":789006,"date":"2026-10-01T22:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T22:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/789006\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T22:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T22:38:11","slug":"thames-water-apologises-after-145000-customer-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/789006\/","title":{"rendered":"Thames Water apologises after \u00a3145,000 customer bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thames Water has apologised to a customer after trying to take \u00a3145,000 from his bank account due to a meter reading error by the company.<\/p>\n

Adam Bainbridge, a teacher from north London, discovered while routinely checking his accounts on Thursday morning that Thames had debited \u00a3145,562 from his bank account.<\/p>\n

His wife Julia told the PA news agency that Adam “got the shock of his life” and had trouble paying bills that morning as a result.<\/p>\n

Thames Water said the money had been returned to his account and that he had been offered “a gesture of goodwill”.<\/p>\n

The company confirmed to BBC News that it had returned the money to Adam’s account and had apologised to him personally.<\/p>\n

Julia told PA that the debit took Adam’s account “considerably” into overdraft.<\/p>\n

She said: “It was pre-8am when we looked … obviously then you try to do some ring rounds, no one’s online, no one’s answering any phones.<\/p>\n

“We’re a family rushing around looking after a three-year-old trying to get ready for the nursery run and all the rest of it.”<\/p>\n

Julia said Adam initially could only speak to a Thames chatbot, which said the error would be rectified in the next payment. He then contacted his bank and the money was returned to his account.<\/p>\n

“As it was this morning, Adam had some bills he wanted to pay off his card and things that were due out of his account and everything was blocked. <\/p>\n

“It’s such a staggering amount of money.”<\/p>\n

The billing error comes at a time when the number of complaints made by households about water companies<\/a> to the industry watchdog has risen by a record 84% in a year, driven by customer concern and confusion over bills.<\/p>\n

Water customers in England and Wales have been hit with steep price hikes in recent years. The regulator Ofwat has also allowed firms to put up bills by 36% between 2025 and 2030.<\/p>\n

Thames Water, the UK’s biggest water company, owes roughly \u00a320bn to lenders and has been working with creditors and government officials to prevent collapse.<\/p>\n

Adam told PA that when he saw the debit he felt “really shocked, because you don’t feel in control of what’s being taken from your account.<\/p>\n

“It seemed that the numbers being calculated had absolutely nothing to do with reality at all. We’re a residential house in north London.<\/p>\n

“It just seems that the billing is completely detached from reality.”<\/p>\n

A Thames Water spokesperson said: “We apologise unreservedly to Mr Bainbridge and his family. This was the result of human error originating from an incorrect meter reading.<\/p>\n

“We can confirm the money has been returned to Mr Bainbridge’s bank account and we have spoken to him today to say sorry.<\/p>\n

“We are introducing additional checks to our processes to prevent this from happening again.<\/p>\n

“We have also offered Mr Bainbridge a gesture of goodwill and are continuing to work with him to ensure the matter is fully resolved.”<\/p>\n

Earlier on Thursday, Julia wrote in a LinkedIn post: “Working parents have enough to contend with in the morning without a utility company emptying their bank account.”<\/p>\n

“How does a payment of this size get taken without basic checks?”<\/p>\n

She also wrote in a comment on the post: “The bank were relatively quick to return the money while Thames Water ‘looked into it.'”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thames Water has apologised to a customer after trying to take \u00a3145,000 from his bank account due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-789006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}