Since selling our house back in January, I've been involved in a long-running debate with our then-current gas & electricity supplier (of their making). We've moved abroad and there have been long delays in receiving their bills, possibly because they had misspelt our address by one (insignificant in my view) letter . Normal letters take around 2-3 days to Austria, but I'm receiving theirs over 3 months later! As an example, I received only this week, on 23rd July, two bills dated 19th January and 29th March! These long delays have resulted in their passing the debt onto a debt collection agency. This has caused much confusion because I was told on 6th January, the day we completed our sale, that the sum I paid then was the full amount owing, and that the account was completely clear. Because of this, I wasn't expecting further bills and therefore did not smell a rat when none appeared.
Anyway, having finally received the 5th different bill *all* proclaiming to be the final one, all of different amounts, it's clearly wrong by around £150-200 and at least a factor of 4. I want to offer them a sum "in full and final settlement" and send them a cheque. In the back of my mind I remember reading that, if the debtor then proceeds to pay the cheque in, it means they have accepted it "in full and final settlement", and the debt is therefore cleared. Am I right in thinking this? At the moment, all I want to is get them off my back.
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No. Basically...! Send them your figure - explain your rationale to them, don't expect them to cal off the dogs for the balanbce they believe you owe. Tell them clearly in the letter that they should deal with this as a complaint. Check their website - find out their complaints proceadure - if you do phone them tape the conversation. Utility companies are useless at this without exception. Expect to have to go to Offgen.
Co-op are launching their own utility company soon. I'll be going to them, even if they cost more.
Last edited by: R.P. on Fri 27 Jul 12 at 08:35
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>> Co-op are launching their own utility company soon. I'll be going to them, even if
>> they cost more.
>>
Why?
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>> Why?
Why, indeed.
Certainly not one of the best organisations I've dealt with in the past.
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I had a spate of bother with AO Hell about 2 years ago, they were trying to get money out of me which I didn't owe.
Eventually, they put the 'debt' with a collection agency who hounded me to distraction, so much so that if they had sent a 'collector' around, I would have made a major adjustment to his/her life span.
In the end my better half got onto Ofcom and we eventually received compensation from said ISP.
I had similar dealings with Npower when we moved here last year, seems our bills were being sent to our previous address, in the end they threatened us with 'proceedings' so we sent em a cheque mucho pronto (bar stewards!)
I'd contact Ofgem in your case squire.
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Once you've informed them the debt is "in dispute" they are obliged to call off the debt collectors.
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Unbelievably and quite coincidentally, today's post has brought ANOTHER two "final bills" from said utility......one dated 19th January, one dated 13th July, and STILL with the same wrong address that they were using despite my going through the correction with them letter by letter on 30th June, 13 days before the July one was issued!! And there is a "debt collection fee" of £5......
Thanks for all the advice, I will be penning a blow by blow account to their complaints department in the next few days.
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Don't let the bar stewards grind you down.
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I am currently trying to get a utility company to change an address for its correspondence. Such a simple task, but monumentally difficult to achieve.
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When I had a serious run-in with my gas supplier, I lost the will to live after fruitless and painstaking explanations to Customer Service(letters/phonecalls) of the situation, which they simply refused or couldn`t grasp!
I thought of Offgen, but instead wrote to their own complaints department, and Halleluyah! within two-weeks, I received by letter, an apology, a reimbursement of funds,and about a week later a `phonecall enquiring if the matter was now settled to my satisfaction. Sometimes, they do employ sensible Humans, as well as corporate Stepford Wives!
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I don't know what it is with utilities. Npower overcharged me by £1500 on the final bill when I switched away. I got it back but there was never any explanation. My new supplier Ovo didn't charge me for any gas for 10 months. They kept telling me ther was a dispute, all they meant was a difference between their starting reading an npowers finishing one. I explained that they had asked me for readings at different times but I was happy for them to use npower's reading as a start. No they said, there is a dispute.
The knock on effect of this was that a month or two back they wrote increasing my monthly DD from 148 to 256 because I had paid so much in the preceding year with all the catch up. Despite providing all the readings to show a full year's usage, I couldn't get them to accept that the right number was 150. Their system said 256, so they just agreed in the end to leave it where it was as long as I am in credit (most generous!). At least Ovo pays 3% interest on credit balances.
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>> I don't know what it is with utilities.
Mistakes happen in every type of company.
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If you've moved to Austria, why bother doing anything?
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>> If you've moved to Austria, why bother doing anything?
>>
An option I'd considered!!
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>> >> If you've moved to Austria, why bother doing anything?
>> >>
>> An option I'd considered!!
>>
What if you ever want to come back?
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>> What if you ever want to come back?
>>
That's one reason I have rejected it.
The other consideration is that the debt collection agency did not attempt to contact me through the same address as the utility. For whatever reason, they chose to use track & trace, and came up with the address of friends that we use as a UK address for various purposes. If I don't settle this once and for all with the utility, there is a danger that large ugly men in black suits will visit our friends and I don't want them to get involved with this hassle.
The debt collection agency have been very helpful actually, and they have told me that I can use the equifax.co.uk site to correct my contact address, which I haven't got round to doing yet.
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>> Unbelievably and quite coincidentally, today's post has brought ANOTHER two "final bills" from said utility......one
>> dated 19th January, one dated 13th July, and STILL with the same wrong address that
>> they were using despite my going through the correction with them letter by letter on
>> 30th June, 13 days before the July one was issued!!
You couldn't make this up, honestly. Having telephoned them today, it seems that they sent out two bills on the 13th July, one with the incorrect address and one with the correct address.....still waiting for the latter.
The score now stands at:
2x Final gas and electricity statements - actual
1x Final gas and electricity bill - estimated
4x Final gas and electricity bill - actual (one more to come)
And BTW, the date on the single estimated final bill lies between two of the actual final bills.
Today is allocated for writing a long detailed letter to the complaints department.......
Last edited by: Mike H on Mon 30 Jul 12 at 11:52
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>> Today is allocated for writing a long detailed letter to the complaints department.......
>>
"long detailed letter" - waste of time.
"complaints department" - waste of time.
Read up on t'internet how to write a short complaint letter.
Then send it to the CEO - www.ceoemail.com/
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I'm with John H on this - someone needs to cut through the writhing and struggling, the messing-about, right-hand-left-hand crap which could otherwise go on and on.
Unless someone with some clout gets on to it, the matter will just be passed back and forth, with no one person taking charge of the case.
Thanks for the link - most useful.
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>> "long detailed letter" - waste of time.
>>
Perhaps you're right, but I need to get some key issues across. I'll follow your tip about writing a short and pithy one.
>> "complaints department" - waste of time.
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Remains to be seen!
>> Then send it to the CEO - www.ceoemail.com/
>>
To be fair, the utilities company does give the name of the Head of Complaints, so I'll send it direct to him. If that doesn't work, I will take it straight to the Energy Ombudsman.
Thanks again for the useful tips. Hopefully it will sort these useless BurGers out!
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>> Then send it to the CEO - www.ceoemail.com/
I tried that shortly after you posted the link previously - no reply :(
Only a relatively minor dispute though over a refund (<£100) from a holiday company.
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>> >> Then send it to the CEO - www.ceoemail.com/
>>
>> I tried that shortly after you posted the link previously - no reply :(
>>
>> Only a relatively minor dispute though over a refund (<£100) from a holiday company.
>>
Well now you know not to give your custom to that company ever again.
I recently had to email one of the CEO's on that list about delivery delays (six weeks proposed rather than contracted 2 weeks). Not only did it get a dedicated Manager to sort it out in two days with daily updates of progress, but there was a follow up too from that Manager about satisfaction with the goods, followed by an unasked for £40 gift voucher.
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I had a right to-do with the same British company when I switched my Gas supplier. I paid the final bill of £250, and then they sent me a cheque for £250.
Then they sent me a bill for £75 which I paid. Happily! They were convinced it was correct; even after a couple of telephone calls. In my view the £250 was correct, but they disagreed. To this date I've no idea whether it should have been £75 or £200 - it took too long and I didn't have all the paperwork.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Mon 30 Jul 12 at 13:42
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Well, bit of a surprise. Having found an email address for the complaints team on Monday, I emailed my complaint rather than writing by snail mail. I asked for an acknowledgement within 2 days. Didn't get that, but within 3 days I had a comprehensive answer and a bill revision which was in line with my expectation. So I'm quite impressed with the way they dealt with this. Some of the answers to my questions were BS, but I'm more interested in a sensible bill rather than absolute clarity of response.
Not so impressive is that their phone system doesn't allow them to telephone me because I'm abroad, and similarly they only give an 0800 number which prevents me telephoning them because I'm abroad.....
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>>and similarly they only give an 0800 number which prevents me telephoning them because I'm abroad.....
Maybe this will help.....
www.0800buster.co.uk/
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>> Not so impressive is that their phone system doesn't allow them to telephone me because
>> I'm abroad, and similarly they only give an 0800 number which prevents me telephoning them
>> because I'm abroad.....
>>
Since you have not named the company, but Mapmaker has alluded that it is a British company supplying Gas, perhaps this might apply to you:
Account enquiries Calling from abroad +44 113 298 0900 *
* Monday to Friday: 8am - 8pm, Saturday: 8am - 6pm
(courtesy of that company's website found using a search engine which goes by the name Google).
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Thanks for that both of you, I already have this number- I have a season ticket to saynoto0870 and it costs very little to phone the UK using telediscount. I was just hoping for a direct number to the person dealing with the complaint, to avoid starting all over again when I speak to someone else.
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Just to close this off, I have spoken to the person dealing with my complaint, and at least the financial side has been resolved which was my key concern. It has also thrown up a few loopholes in their systems - for example, they have a record confirming that they received a letter from me and replied to a letter I sent them, but can't find that reply, and did not action the minor address change in that letter.
All in all, I think they have handled the complaint well.
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Dispute regarding money owed to utility company - R.P.
