A married couple in Enniscorthy in Wexford discovered last week that Irish Water had been sending their water bills to an address in Vietnam.
The pensioners, named Alan and Patricia Jones, had only moved back to Ireland in recent years after they retired, having spent decades living in Australia and Malaysia.
They made several attempts to get in contact with Irish Water when they moved into their home in Templeshannon, but never received any response until last week, when Alan received a message from the company demanding payment.
Patricia told TheJournal.ie,
We never heard another thing. Not by visit, phone, mail or email, until last week when we received a text via my husband’s mobile phone threatening us re: paying our account.
Upon receiving this puzzling message, the couple called Irish Water to find out what the problem was.
I told her what had happened and asked her how we could be ‘in arrears’ when we have never seen an employee, an email or a letter until this one of demand. I asked how come we are in arrears if we have never received a bill by any method.
When the Irish Water employee on the other end of the line looked further into their bill problem to see if the bills had been posted, she discovered that they’d been sent to a Mr George Chen in Vietnam.
The couple were taken aback by the discovery of this mistake, alarmed that this unknown individual in Southeast Asia has been given possession of private information pertaining to their home.
This hasn’t been the first mishap by the water company, having already attracted much criticism from the public for having sent out thousands of incorrect bills and sending over 6,000 letters to the wrong address.
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