I had £3,600 taken out of my account by my water company – and they still haven’t paid me back

A MUM was horrified after her water company accidentally took £3,600 from her bank instead of the £36 she owed.

Nicky Birch said a Severn Trent Water adviser told her on the phone: “Oops, I’ve added too many noughts” - but was unable to cancel it.

Mum of four Nicky, 39, phoned up last Saturday to pay her monthly bill.

A total of £3,601 left her account - one hundred times too much - and she said she was still waiting to get it back nearly a week later.

The same account is also used to pay her and butcher husband Rob’s mortgage in Rugby, Warks.

Fortunately she had enough in the bank to cover the erroneous payment without going overdrawn.

But for another family the blunder could have been devastating.

Full time carer Nicky said: “I usually pay by going into my local Post Office and it works out as £50 a month.

“But I rang them up last Saturday to see if I owed anything as I like to pay things off.

“She said I owed £36.06 so that’s how much I intended to pay.

"It was Saturday and my weekend off so I thought instead of trekking all the way to town I’d just do it over the phone quickly.

“The woman went all quiet and I went 'hello?' and she said she’s accidentally pressed some more zeros.

“I said ‘Oh my God, can you stop it?’ and she said she couldn’t.”

Nicky, who does not have internet banking, says she was told to try going to a Santander branch to see if they could stop the payment.

She added: “I went into the bank and they said they couldn’t do anything.

“Severn Trent Water agreed to refund it but they said it would take four to five working days."

The water company Water did not offer any compensation, and still took the £36.06 from the Birch family.

“It’s my account but my husband’s wages get paid in there monthly,” Nicky said.

“There’s not a huge amount in there but all of our bills come out of that account - if everything had come out at the same time it would have been worse.

“A lot of my friends at work said if it had happened to them it could have meant their mortgage wouldn’t have come out.”

Severn Trent Water said: “We’re incredibly sorry to the customer for this error – we fully appreciate just how inconvenient this must have been.

“We’re pleased to say the full amount that was owed to the customer has been returned to her account. Again, we’re really sorry for this mistake.”

Last week we told how Edf wrongly took £442 from a customer's account twice.

The same supplier took £336,865 from a mum for one month's electricity bill last month.