How We Solved Our Excessive Water Billing With Maynilad (Where To Go and What To Do)

Our usual Maynilad Bill is at 3,000 Php. We are a household of 10, but something weird happened starting a couple of years ago, ending with our monthly Maynilad water bill for March 2018 blowing up to 12,000 Php. This is outrageous because we are just a residential place WITHOUT any pool. We even checked if there are leaks around the house (and none were found).

This is the story of how my husband and I finally solved the problems that arose with our complaint to Maynilad. Included here are things to do and where to go when the situation gets dire. I hope it will help you too.

The Problem:

We went to the office of Maynilad in Cavite because we didn't realize at first that there is an Alabang branch. The personnel in Cavite are quite accommodating and assured us that they will try to investigate the issue.

When the April billing came, things turned back to the norm of 3,000 Php and we called back the Maynilad customer service with our reference number, and they said that everything is quite fine. We can just pay for the 3,000 Php billing and the remaining 9,000 Php from the previous billing of March will just be waived. 

Unfortunately, the remaining balance of 9,000 pesos was never waived and in fact it stayed with our billing statement until June 2018, and we had our water cut off by July 2018. They even added a penalty fee atop the remaining 9,000 pesos just because we didn't pay for it in the first place.

And that was when we researched some more and went to the Maynilad Alabang branch to explain what had happened. So they opened back the case and said that they will investigate.

The Obvious Bias

When they said investigate, Maynilad went in our home, and obviously did something with our meter. We did not know that the protocol while investigating is that there should be someone from the household present. There was no signing of any contract that stated we were there when they fiddled with our meter. We only suspected because a couple of weeks after, when we received our bill. Because it went from 4-5,000 Pesos to a suspicious 600 pesos. Of course we were shocked and all but we thought that it was normal because the alabang branch of Maynilad was investigating in the first place.

The results of the investigation though was that Maynilad accused us of tampering with our meter.

Which we obviously did not do. They would not even have investigated in the first place if we did not report the anomalies of the said 12,000 peso bill and the suspicious increase in billing for our water supply.

After the investigation, we've had enough and Pichi came in the office, trying to explain the situation. I remember I was at the Block and White Sakura/Sakuha Event at the time this happened.

It was obvious though that they were biased as they said that the investigation was absolute, they're not gonna do anything about it because from their investigation, WE TAMPERED WITH OUR METER TO MAKE IT LOWER PRICED.

Fortunately, we had a family friend who was also a retired personnel of Maynilad from way back.We finally had hope. Said friend pointed out the anomalies in our investigation, like:

• The part where we were not there when they investigated the meter
• There were papers that needed to be signed by someone from our household, but there aren't any
• The same papers had no signature from the higher ups of the Maynilad Alabang Department.

And we were recommended to go to MWSS or the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System department's website and explain the situation via email or via their contact us page.

MWSS and Their Swift Action

We went to MWSS as we wanted to give our concerns personally, but we found out that they already received our emails and was just about to contact us to set a meeting with Maynilad and our party. It was October 2018 and they set the meeting at their earliest time.

We agreed and MWSS contacted Maynilad with our situation, and they summoned Maynilad to come to a sit down meeting to solve the problem at hand.

While I was not physically present at the meeting, my pichi relayed what happened. Which was that both parties were allowed to present their defense one at a time, with a personnel of MWSS as moderator.

After everything was said and done, MWSS pointed out these things:

• The investigation result that it was tampered was invalid in the first place, because there was no proof that we were the ones who tampered it.
• While Maynilad wanted MWSS to check the investigation that they made, they reiterated that there was no need because there were no signatures from us, hence we were not there and they did not follow proper procedure.
• The whole point of why we asked for an investigation from Maynilad was that WHY we had bills amassing more than 10,000 pesos per month when we do not even have a pool in our residential area in the first place. So why was Maynilad making us the bad guys here from the start?

The compromise that was made is that Maynilad FINALLY waived the penalty fees and they also offered to move the water meter nearer our home free of charge, so that if someone comes from Maynilad we can check and see.

Conclusion

So when you are in a similar situation as us, just make sure to:

• always read what you sign when it comes to contracts
• have your evidence ready. 

MWSS is the governing department on our water systems/ water privatization so weather you are under Maynilad or Manila Water, if you have any concerns just drop them an email. Link here.

Funny enough, Maynilad was pretty pissed at our family friend and wanted the details on him. We of course didn't give it to them, but it is sad that this is how Maynilad treats their retirees when the company is in the wrong, and their old employees offer a helping hand to those who are wronged.

I hope this helps.