Lake Addiscombe: every home on Teevan Road had a new water feature yesterday
After the Teevan Road burst main, when residents in Addiscombe went to fill the kettle or take a shower yesterday, this is the sort of response that they got from a privatised utility company that pays £1m ‘golden hellos’ to its bosses
Yesterday’s burst water main on Teevan Road in Addiscombe was caused by Thames Water.
Hundreds of households had no water supply for most of the rest of the day. As Croydon swelters in the hottest summer on record.
And yet when Thames Water customers went to their suppliers for information about the position, this was typical of the money-saving, AI-generated, couln’t-give-a-flying-fuck response they received…
Read more: In a drought, Addiscombe suffers flood thanks to Thames Water
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Thames Water should be renationalised
Please, can we all be clear about this, this is not AI. It is a badly programmed Bot, responding to standard questions without any intelligence whatsoever. It is a cheap trick used by suppliers of services to fool customers into thinking they are being listened to when they are not. You might as well ask Siri or Alexa when your water will be restored, and Alexa will reply “Hmm, I’m not sure how to answer that”. Your message will not be read by any human. Most of the humans who used to respond to customer queries are employed elsewhere by now and the few who are left are not answering the phone because they can’t obtain any updates either. The supplier simply doesn’t care, if Head Office has even been informed yet by the team who made the mistake in the first place. Welcome to Customer Service 2026.