How do I make it stop

[Yalta]

Am I being unreasonable that companies need to check someone actually owes what they think they owe before sending bills and threatening paperwork out
And when someone writes back sending proof as to why they don’t owe it they actually get someone who knows how to read and understand figures to take on board what someone is saying

ATM I have an electricity bill from a previous house that I left nearly 10 months ago. They say I owe over £1000

I say it should be under £50.

I have a parking fine for a place that I work that has a free staff parking

I am battling to do a lease extension (after 8 months) I finally received the paperwork to sign and found it was in the name of the owners 2 owners ago. I have had to put it on hold as although I keep going back to my solicitor. He hasn’t heard a thing and when he calls them, not only am I getting charged for the call the landlords solicitor say it will be a couple of months (every time) before they can get the correct paperwork together

After moving from the previous house I received a bill from the council tax. Given the amount I had already paid I should have received a refund. Instead they were taking me to court for the amount my refund was supposed to be (they couldn’t get their mind around debit and credit) and had added all sorts of court costs

Finally after battling for months I received my refund last week

I have been told I was 1 month late with my car insurance payment

I am not nor have I ever been 1 month late with anything. Especially as the 1 month late refers to the month of October. I took out and paid my first months payment on 29th September and asked and paid up to 1st November as I prefer things coming out of my account on 1st. (Apparently I didn’t pay anything in October and even though I wasn’t supposed to the system doesn’t take account of that and issued credit reference agencies with a 1

I am self employed and the amount of time I spend trying to get paperwork together and proof and emails explaining why I don’t owe something is long and exhausting and until it gets to the very end, no one takes any notice of what you have said

I am so done with it all

Any advice would be gratefully received

I've never experienced this but it's happening to you and awful lot and from multiple companies and agencies. Are you sure you're not the issue here?

To have so many issues sounds really odd

Either you are really unlucky or you haven’t got a grip of your finances like you think you have

To be honest it sounds like you are quite clued up on this stuff, but in being so you choose to do things that are convenient to you, but are slightly "unconventional" to either "the computer" or a generic employee of a random company.

So basically, these things are happening because you are asking to do things ever so slightly differently than the majority of people. That's the problem in my opinion.

What am I doing differently?

Is asking for an electricity bill each month that doesn’t change not what people expect

Am I doing things differently by expecting my payments to remain on my account

Or am I expecting that someone in an accounts department knows the difference between a credit and a debit

Oh I can believe it. Ovo tried to charge me £85 for 3 days’ electricity when I moved house, then after I contacted them with the corrected meter readings and paid what I actually owed (£8) they then couldn’t decide whether I didn’t owe them anything (phone calls and emails) or whether they were taking me to court (letters, arriving at the same time as the phone calls and emails). Ended up having to go to the ombudsman after 8 months of threatening letters from them.

I had Lambeth tow my car, with a valid resident’s permit in the windscreen, because “they didn’t notice it”.

Lambeth council also managed to set up two parallel council tax accounts for me - same address, same account holders, two identical bills with different account numbers. That ended up going to court because the idiots in Lambeth’s council tax dept couldn’t grasp that I wasn’t liable for two lots of council tax on the same house.

All thrown out eventually, but very stressful to sort out at the time.

Just as an example
A few years ago I did my tax return. I had a letter from HMRC thanking me for my tax return. All done correctly and on time.

Several months later I get a letter from a court in Northampton (no where near where I live) that I had been taken to court and didn’t appear (I knew nothing about being taken to court) and so the court found against me and I needed to pay £390 otherwise I would have a county court judgement against my name.

My finances and any paperwork are run with precision. Because of stuff like this happening I always make copies and take screen shots of everything.
So I knew that everything I had done was correct. I couldn’t think what it could be and I had to contact the court who gave me the solicitors name who had been in court

According to the solicitor I hadn’t done my tax return. I replied that I had and had a confirmation letter to prove it.
I had to pay £390 into the court and send a copy of the confirmation letter to the solicitors HMRC refunded the £250 fine but apparently I should have been aware I had been taken to court and stopped it so because I didn’t I lost the £140 that was the solicitors and court fees

*Saschka. *

Ovo is the electricity company I am talking about

Despite not being in the house (I moved) they have changed my balance by £25 and a £40 with no explanation

I called them and asked what were these amounts for

Their answer

“Don’t know” “followed by are you going to pay the balance”

if you have proof of your meter readings send to them - did you take photos when you moved out?

https://www.moneyclaimsuk.co.uk/ccbc.aspx

This explains why Northampton was the court, it’s nothing to do with where you live.

As for the rest it does sound like more hassle that you’d expect. I’d check all your details are up to date as you should be receiving correspondence and be served with any proceedings. Do you live with anyone who could be hiding your post?

I had a fine from Chiswick council for driving the wrong way up a certain road. The problem I had was I was told to park in a certain car park and approached the car park from the north.

When I left I turned right out of the car park

I saw a sign with a camera saying new restrictions ahead (or something like that)

Then I saw a sign saying only residents and permit holders could proceed along the road in say 100 metre (can’t remember the exact meterage) I looked for where I could turn off the road but there was no where to turn.

They had placed the sign after the last possible turn off anyone could make.

This went all the way to court

No one actually read what I wrote. Chiswick council kept repeating that there were signs at the start of the road that you couldn’t drive northward on this particular road
They sent me pictures of all the signs they had put up. They didn’t seem to understand that I didn’t pass those signs because I never turned into the road where their signs were

In court apparently I was supposed to stop the car in the middle of the road and do a U Turn or 3 point turn.

The judge was not impressed with their solutions and my fine was cancelled

My question was why couldn’t someone look at my answer that I wrote appealing the fine in the first place why did I have to write over and over to them and go to court before someone used some common sense

Take them to the Ombudsman - honestly it is the only thing that got any traction whatsoever. I sent a recorded delivery letter raising a formal complaint (because they hadn’t recorded any of my prior phone calls or emails as complaints despite me telling them to), and I refused to pick up the phone to them because I didn’t want them closing the complaint. All communication in writing only so there’s a paper trail.

It actually took them 7 weeks of emails and phone calls before they put the correct metre readings and date I moved out on my account

This though is about them deleting payments off my account. Not sending me random bills for 18 months/2 years

Imagine thinking you are up to date with a bill and then receiving the next statement and they say you are in arrears by £500 and when you look at your statements they have been altered going back 10 months and late payment fees added.
The £500 payment you made 10 months prior is no longer on your account, it has disappeared and when you call them up the person tells you that nothing has changed and you have been behind with your payments for 10 months and if you don’t pay they will take you to court and as well as being fined you could end up in prison

That is pretty much my experience. Yes I will spend months of my life trying to prove I am right against a company who will just alter amounts from one day to the next with no explanation
Yes I will win but the cost of trying to prove I don’t owe stuff is wasting my life

so log a complaint and wait for deadlock and go to ombudsman

Ah, OP I feel your pain. No advice as you seem to be far more organised than I am, but I have had various experiences where one error made by an organisation or company has just spiralled out of control because computer said no / had indigestion / file fell down the back of the cabinet.

Most irritating one in recent years - my DP died unexpectedly. He was transferred between 2 hospitals for surgery and I diligently gave them all his current information, including his current address, as when he was admitted the address was over 20 years old from his last hospital visit. I told both hospitals several times.

When he actually died, for various reasons he had an Interim Death certificate as his post mortem was inconclusive. Of course I couldn't do anything official in the way of sadmin until I had it. When it turned up, yep, address from 20 years ago on it. So I had to go through the whole rigmarole again, becausecthe incorrect address rendered it useless, the delay screwed up the "Tell Us Once" thing, and it meant hours on the phone to various places having to explain why I couldn't yet provide official proof of death.

Trying to get one of the water companies to change the direct debit to my account took forever because of this, then it transpired junior member of staff "misunderstood" the process, and in alignment with all the utilities, didn't need a death certificate at all to transfer the account. I did get an apogy but by that time I was virtually doing vodka shots through my eyeballs and swinging from the ceiling.

So, I empathise hugely and absolutely believe it's not you.

You weren't born on a Wednesday by any chance were you?

Wishing you all the best.

That's the story of my life. Customer service has gone downhill over the past several years. Those who don't believe your examples probably haven't experience many changes in their lives recently or are lucky. However, it's only a matter of time till such Kafkaesque situations befall them.

I keep meticulous records, know my rights, use simple English and keep asking them to escalate my complaint and then go to the relevant ombudsman, councillor, msp or mp (as appropriate), if the higher ups fail to sort it out. I also practise detachment and other mindfulness strategies because other alternatives would be harmful to me or them. At this stage, I am genuinely surprised if I manage to sort out anything at first try.

I moved house twice this year and I probably spent more time writing letters of complaint and chasing people up than packing and unpacking.

OVO, I whisper their name, are hopeless. Anyone I have ever spoken to in Customer service doesn't seem to realise they have an actual job working for OVO. It's all a mystery to them.

I am with the ombudsman Was told to go to them in an email from ovo

Ovo called me to pay my bill. I explained it was with the ombudsman and they said they hadn’t finished dealing with my complaint
and hadn’t referred me to the ombudsman

Don’t get me started on the SAR requests I have sent

Most I got back was a copy of my historic billing which involved 3 different bills for the same month each month

First one dated the day I was supposed to get my bill

Then 5 days later a different bill for for the same time period

Then they would take the Carry Forward figure from this bill as the opening amount for the next months bill

But 5 weeks after my original bill became due the bill would change again

So the opening figure for the next months bill was wrong

And repeat every single month