massive water bill £592!!!

[headintheclouds]

Help! Does anyone know anything about water bills-Ive just received aletter from the utilities saying that they've recently read my meter and have realised that they have undercharged me between May 2004 and July 2007. So they have re-assessed what I would have used and applied a charge of £592.
I spoke to someone at customer enquiries who says that they are well within their rights to do this and can go back up to 3 years to make arrears charges.
So I have been merrily paying my bill by monthly direct debit assuming that Im paying the correct amount. They say my water meter was noted to be faulty in June and they replaced the meter and made this new calculation. I'm furious about this and cannot believe that I have to pay up-I did not know my meter was damaged and how can they know that it has not worked properly for the last 3 years and apply what they ESTIMATE I would have used? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Go to Citizens advice tomorrow and take all your bills etc with you. I am sure they can't back charge you on an estimate.

We had similar with electricity and negotiated payments over a few years so you may find that helps if you really do owe that much.

Since then we read our own metre 3 monthly and amend their estimates!

If you are with seven trent, call them and ask to be put through to seven trent trust fund, ask them to send you a form, and if your reasons are good enough, they have the ability to write the debt off.