Our water bill spiked inexplicably, we dutifully paid (an insane and implausible amount) to avoid any debt collection issue. But I also requested a leak investigation. This was in August 2021. They sent an engineer who said he found a leak around September 2021, and so they arranged a repair and said we'd be reimbursed for the amount we have overpaid. Fair enough. Got some news that unfortunately the repair had been delayed, it could take weeks, maybe all the way until November! Fair enough, we can wait, I understand these things take time. Whoops, it's been delayed now because there is a hotel in the area they need to talk to before they can fix the leak. Fair enough, it will be done in late December they say. January comes around, the leak has not been fixed, Thames Water now says they don't have a date for when the leak will be fixed. We continue this dance until April, this time, Thames Water sends us a bill, another huge one that makes absolutely no sense. I call in to say "hey, this bill is not reasonable as there is an unfixed leak' they say 'we understand, but you still need to pay, we don't care if it's a ridiculous amount that we know makes no sense, and no, we don't yet know when your leak will be fixed. Pay us anyways, we will adjust later.' At this point I'm expected to take them at their word...it's April, so they have already proven that their word cannot be trusted. I contact the Consumer Council for water (CCW) to complain, and the CCW is very understanding. CCW says not to pay the bill, and gives Thames Water a call, they are not impressed either. They tell Thames water to schedule a repair. All of a sudden, I get a call from Thames Water saying they've scheduled a repair for May 9. This essentially means that if they really cared to do this, they would've done it sooner. My bill has been 'generously' frozen until the repair is made. Here we are in present day, it's May 20th, 2022. Thames Water sent a team that has determined that the issue has magically fixed itself, but that they didn't do anything. Our water meter is miraculously reporting normal usage again. However! There is a tiny leak on the side of our property (well, our landlord's property, rather). The engineer explicitely said it was much too small a leak to explain the large bill. Essentially 'we have done nothing, but the leak looks like it fixed itself, we have no idea what the problem was, we have failed to find it, anyways, life goes on'. I ask what this means about my bill, and Thames Water says that now that they have done nothing but usage is back to normal, I am still expected to pay the previous completely ridiculous bill that was frozen. Why? Because thames water has failed to actually find out the problem. They said an 'adjustment' can't be made until our landlord fixes the tiny leak that the engineer said was too small to explain the bill, but not otherwise. In the interim, Thames Water tells me that they will move to debt collection in 2 weeks if we do not pay the bill that CCW previously advised us not to pay. When they want money '2 weeks or else', but when we want a repair 'please, you must understand! we need 9 months!' Absolutely shameless greed and apathy, abject failure and intimidation at every level. This company is a joke.