Complaints Procedure

What we will do

Our complaint investigation will follow all regulatory rules and guidelines, and the minimum standard you should expect from us is as follows;

1. We will endeavour to resolve your complaint within 3 working days of receipt and subject to your agreement that we have resolved this matter to your satisfaction we will issue you with a summary resolution letter confirming the matter has been closed and the agreed action we have/will be taking to resolve.

2. If we are unable to resolve your complaint by close of business on the third working day we will send you a written acknowledgement within 5 working days after receiving your complaint. This will tell you who is dealing with the matter, their job title and when you may expect their response.

3. No later than 4 weeks from us receiving your complaint we will confirm in writing whether we:

• accept the complaint, issue our final response letter confirming what steps we will/have taken to resolve the matter, or
• have been unable so far to resolve the complaint and provide the reason why e.g. that our investigations are ongoing. We will also tell you when you should expect a further response, or
• reject the complaint and issue our final response letter giving a full explanation of our reasons.

4. No later than 8 weeks from receiving your complaint we will either:

• provide you with our final response letter accepting or rejecting your complaint. If rejecting we will give you a full explanation of our reasons, if accepting we will confirm what steps we will/have taken to resolve the matter, or
• if matters still remain unresolved, we will provide you with an appropriate update.

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Uses made of the information

We use information held about you in the following ways:

• to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts or agreements entered into between you and us and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us;
• to notify you about changes to our service;
• to administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
• to improve our site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
• to allow you to participate in interactive features of our website, when you choose to do so including our online invoicing and billing service;
• as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure;
• to measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you;
• to make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our site about goods or services that may interest you or them;
• to contact you by SMS with information related to your account or appointment;
• to ask you for feedback about your experiences with us;
• to contact you in any way (including mail, email, telephone, text or multimedia messages) about products and services offered by us unless you have previously asked us not to do so;
• to help to prevent and detect fraud or loss;
• for statistical analysis
• Information we receive from other sources. We may combine this information with information you give to us and information we collect about you. We may use this information and the combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive).

• We may monitor and record communications with you (including phone conversations and emails) for quality assurance and compliance reasons.

• Where you give us information on behalf of someone else, you confirm that you have provided them with the information set out in these provisions and that they have not objected to such use of their personal information. Where you give us sensitive data about yourself or another person (such as health details or details of any criminal convictions) you agree (and confirm that the other person has agreed) to our processing such information in the manner set out in these provisions.

• We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfill our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

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Disclosure of your information

We may share your personal information with any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.

We may share your information with selected third parties including:

• Business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the supply of services to you and performance of any contract we enter into with you.
• Local authorities for the purposes of confirming the occupancy of property.
• Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

• In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
• If Sutton and East Surrey Water Services Ltd or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
• If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use or the terms upon which we provide water services or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Sutton and East Surrey Water Services Ltd. our customers, or others.

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Should you remain dissatisfied with our final decision or more than 8 weeks have passed since receipt of your complaint, you may be an eligible complainant within the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and if you wish, you may contact the FOS by telephone on 0800 023 4567 or via their website, www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk