Watercare apologises after $6 million taken early from almost 44,000 customer accounts

Watercare mistakenly billed tens of thousands of Aucklanders early, deducting over $6 million from their accounts.Chief financial officer Angela Neeson said an error during an upgrade to Watercare's billing system resulted 43,835 customers' credit cards and direct debits being charged a combined $6.14 million."We're deeply sorry for this error and the inconvenience it has caused," Neeson said."The issue occurred on Monday, and we contacted affected customers the same day. Customers have been offered the option of having the payment reversed as we know an unexpected payment can create financial hardship for some customers."Customers who choose to have the payment reversed will be able to manually pay their bill on the due date."Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown said he wasn't aware of the error until he was approached by media."It was a system error and I expect better, as would all Aucklanders. However, it's good to see that Watercare have reacted quickly to correct this mistake," he said.Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown.RNZ / Marika KhabaziConsumer NZ campaigns manager Jessica Walker said the error was disappointing."The number of customers impacted by this is obviously quite significant, we're looking at tens of thousands of customers having money deducted from their accounts when they're not expecting it," she said."That's going to have been a shock for people, and it could put them into overdraft, and it can also lead to people incurring additional fees through no fault of their own."She gave Watercare credit for notifying customers immediately."Watercare did realise pretty quickly what had happened and did get in touch with impacted customers quickly, which is great to hear," she said."But it looks like it's up to the individual customers who are at risk of hardship or who can't afford for that payment to come out to then get in touch with Watercare and they have said they will immediately provide refunds."Walker worried that customers who asked for refunds may forget to pay their bill manually when the due date came, and urged Watercare to be lenient."We're concerned people might get their refund and won't think about the fact that the payment they had set to automatically come out won't automatically come out because it went early and they've had it refunded," she said."It could lead to people getting overdue fees if they miss that date, so we would expect some kind of leniency or flexibility shown, because this whole mix-up is absolutely not the customers' fault."Consumer NZ campaigns manager Jessica Walker.Supplied / Consumer NZLobby group Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance demanded an independent investigation into the error."It's a $6 million blunder that's left thousands of Aucklanders out of pocket," senior policy advisor Josh Van Veen said."It's all very well for Watercare to say it's a system error and apologise, but that's cold comfort for people in financial hardship."We want to understand how it happened and ensure it doesn't happen again."He said it was "appalling" that the mayor wasn't informed of the error before news broke."I would've thought Watercare operates under a no surprises policy and they should be briefing the Mayor on something of this magnitude."