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Castle Water customers can choose their water retailer. But, customers who switch from Castle to other water retailers are often very unhappy. If you buy through a broker (or Third Party Intermediary), they are not regulated by Ofwat, so any claimed savings should be viewed very carefully – please look at unit rates, payment terms, and termination fees before agreeing to switch:
- False claims on savings. One large broker, Love Energy Savings, claims on their website: “Our customers can save up to £450 on their annual bill”. Castle Water’s own retail charges total less than £450 for 94% of all our customers in England, so the claimed savings cannot be true for the vast majority of Castle Water’s business water customers.
- Switch to save, but pay more! Everflow and brokers promoting Everflow make claims of very significant savings: the financial results in Everflow’s accounts have a Gross Margin only 1.4% lower than Castle’s. This means that the average saving customers make is only 1.4% compared with Castle, but some customers are paying 2 months in advance – in cash terms most customers lose badly if they switch to Everflow.
- Ofwat has taken action against other retailers for over-charging Last year, Ofwat had to issue a Direction to force 5 retailers to stop over-charging small customers, including Business Stream, Everflow, SES Business Water, Water Plus and Wave.
Castle Water has more resource to support customers
- Castle Water has a dedicated Field Team of directly employed meter readers who are able to take the time to access complex meters and trained to investigate faults – no other water retailer does this
- Castle Water successfully challenges “wholesaler” errors – Castle Water has taken more Trading Disputes through the water market than all other water retailers combined, to correct inaccurate charges
- Castle Water is the only water retailer to have ever taken water charges to a formal Arbitration to ensure charges are correct
- Castle Water is the only water retailer to have ever raised a Competition Act complaint about water charges and metering
Castle Water has the best performance on meter reading, and accurate invoices
Since we took over management of our own meter reading (for many customers, this had been managed by Thames Water on our behalf), we now have the best meter reading performance of any water retailer. We have also invested in new invoicing and customer service systems specifically developed for this water market. Castle Water is committed to accurate billing.
Castle Water is transparent and offers choice
Customers have sent us quotes for water services which appear to show very big savings, notably from Everflow. These do not disclose the full charges – in one case we have seen, the customer is quoted “Tariff: £42.32 per month plus wholesale”. This looked like a huge saving, as the most recent Castle bill was approx. £600 per month. However, the Castle bill included wholesale charges, which are 90% of the bill, and weren’t included in the other quote. With Everflow, the customer had to pay two months in advance, while with Castle bills were monthly in arrears and could be based on actual meter readings. In cashflow terms, even with the (small) saving on the bill the customer was paying nearly 25% more in their first year with Everflow than they would have staying with Castle.
Castle is committed to fair and transparent charges, has the best meter reading performance and has the best billing systems in the market.
