Water company claiming DS owes them money for house that doesn't exist???

[WaterRidiculousSituation]

This is a really weird one, and if anyone has any advice it would be welcome!

Ds came home from work (lives with me) this morning to find a letter from a debt collection agency, saying he owes over £650 in water supply arrears. However...

• He's never held an account with a water company, never been responsible for paying a water bill
• It was for an address we left in 2021
• The house belonged to my dad who was the account holder (and meticulous about paying bills!)
• The debt is for water supply to the property for 2022-23
• The house was demolished in late 2021/ early 2022 so didn't exist during the period of supposed arrears
• Ds wasn't even 18 when we left that house and didn't even have a bank account let alone utility accounts

They said it has been passed to a debt agency because he has ignored all previous attempts to get him to pay it. There have been absolutely no attempts whatsoever - and in any case he's never been the water bill payer!

We have called the water co and the debt agency but they are not being helpful. The water co say they can't give him any further details about how this has happened because he didn't pass the security questions for the account...well yeah, because it's not his account. The debt agency say it's up to the water co.

How can this have happened? Has this happened to anyone else?

When I was working in payables I used to deal with debt collectors. When I got a letter I'd go on their website and say why this wasn't us and this was the defence I'd use in court. Never went any further, but you should never ignore a debt collectors letter. Those people don't go away.

Do you have any paperwork/ copies of planning consent confirming the demolition of the house? Does DS have the same initials as your DF? Were you the contact after your DF left the house - not clear how they got DS' address?

Personally I think it's a bit rum that someone can be dragooned into having to do work - no matter how "trivial" - as a result of someone else's incompetence.

But that's English law for you

In the past 2 years my late uncle has been chased for an outstanding gas bill (on his property which did not have gas!)

After DM died I notified Affinity water and instead of shutting the account for some reason they created a new account for her NDN in my name ffs! So NDN was getting letters over 6months in my name (with zero balance) for his property. He binned them as didnt recognise my surname. That took a bit of unravelling on the phone!

Has anyone mention back-billing yet? "If customers have underpaid for water in the past, they can be back-billed for a period of up to a maximum of 24 months. In most cases, the back-billing period will be 16 months." That means that they have no right to ask you to pay, even if you did owe them (which you don't).

British Gas asked me to pay them hundreds of pounds. I told them they had no right to ask me to pay as it was more than a year ago. In my case the problem was that the company I chose hadn't entered my details correctly on the database. This is a breach of the data protection act, as far as I can see. So BG decided I was with them even though I had no contract with them.

I wouldn't open my door to debt collectors.

I think what they do is sell the debt collection to another debt collecting company. I had letters coming to my flat, I told the company this person does not live here. Then I got similar letters from a different company. Maybe a third, I can't remember.

Hi op, I had similar when a debt collection agency came after me for a utility bill for a house I had lived in, but for a period after I had moved out. They sent me a few letters and also phoned me, I was feeling quite anxious as they just kept saying my name was on the debt and how would I like to pay?

i read up on it and found that whilst they will go after anyone linked to the property to see if they can get a settlement, the onus is on the debt collector to prove, with evidence, that the debt belongs to the person they are chasing.

I used this template to send them a letter requesting they provide evidence and documentation that the debt was mine or to stop contacting me, and I never heard from them again

https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201307_cfpb_debt-collection-letter_1-not-my-debt.doc

I’ve just seen that someone above mentioned and linked to info about a ‘prove it’ letter, that’s what the .gov template I linked to is. I really think this is your sons next best step as you know they can’t prove it so it will end it

Some people's incompetence makes work for other people? are you new to this country, or something? altho I'm not sure what the law has to do with it, apart from it allowing me to speak in my own or in this case my company's defence.

It gave me a small amount of satisfaction to point out they were wrong every time and make the company reverse the charge.

I often wonder what goes on in Utility Companies computer systems/databases.
Since we've lived in this house (30 years and only ever occupiers) I've had:

A water company van turn up to fix a leak I'd apparently reported - I hadn't and there was no leak!

A water company van turn up to fix a blocked drain I'd reported - I hadn't. They actually came twice for that one. The 1st time I was out but the had clearly tried to lift the drain cover on our drive - which DS's car was partly parked on). They put a card through the door saying they couldn't find a blockage and if I had further problems to ring them. They turned up again later that day (different blokes, apparantly) and again insisted I'd reported a blocked drain. They even showed me their computer showing MY address. Turns out it was the neighbour opposite whose house number isn't even close to mine!
I can only conclude that every fault for the 40 houses on my street get logged against my address.

I also got an electricity bill addressed to me at my address for a property elsewhere in the village which I have never owned and have no connection with. In fact, I don't even buy my electricity from this supplier.

I had a Sky TV engineer turn up at my door to install my Sky system. I hadn't ordered one. Turns out it was for another house in the street (engineer rang them to find out where they lived) so it got installed at the right house, but then I got all their Sky bills for months afterwards.

In all of the above cases, none of the customer service lines were ever able to tell me why my address had been allocated to these calls - and I don't live at number 1 so it's not as if I'm the first house on a drop down list!

What happens often is they ask you for the first line of your address and your postcode. Then they look at their drop-down menu and select the first one that matches. In my case there are 2 properties that have my number and postcode so mistakes often happen. As I said I consider this to be a breach of the Data Protection Act.

Hi all, thanks for those letter templates - we have sent something similar but will use the 'prove it' one if we need to contact them again. As you've said, the onus is on them to prove that ds owes the money - they can't do that obviously, so hopefully this will be the end of it.

It's appalling that they can do this though, because in some cases people will pay up just out of fear. Malice or incompetence, I'm not sure which!

Can you locate CEO details? I once sent an email to water company CEO and got a very fast response.

Some debt companies are ridiculous. 10 years ago we got a bill for a stupid amount of money in gas. We rang the company who agreed there’s no way we could have used that amount. Think restaurant amount! They still doubled down and said we had to pay it. We refused and paid our normal amount. They chased us for a bit and then gave up

When we moved into out house, we bought it off a couple that had rented it out for a few years and we got several bills and things for the previous tenants who were clearly not paying their bills. We emailed the various places (including a debt collection place) with evidence of when we bought the house!!

Make a formal written complaint. It needs to state it is a complaint. Water companies get penalised for it. This should speed resolution.
post on their social media too. In many utilities social media people are young, quick and clever, they find out and solve things, while customer call centre are mainly outsourced to people who have no idea what they are talking about and follow a script. They have no access to databases, limited access to billing so they would not genuinely know what is happening

It could be just incompetence but sounds more like a scam. Stand your ground and use the Citizens' Advice Bureau/free legal help if needed. Demand proof of debt and account holder.

I once got a call from a "debt recovery agency" that said I owe money from medical bills. I said it's not possible. Then they claimed it's actually my mother's debts that have been passed on to me. I said that's not possible either. They ask why so. I said my mum has never set foot on Australia (where I live and this happened). They hung up.
Scammers try all sorts and some are convincing, but stick to your guns!

Send the letter recorded delivery/signed for