what can we do about this debt collection letter?

[bamboobutton]

brief background: moved into this property in dec last year and immediatly switched elec providers from E.on to southern elec.

e.on sent us a bill for £187 for 1 months useestimated from previous tennants usauge. we disputed this when we accident;y opened a letter addressed to estate agent and the billing period was going back to october, months before we even moved in.

after a almost year of pointless phone calls trying to explain what has happened they still kept sending us massive bills

i phoned a week ago when a final demand was sent telling them again that the bill is wrong, i give meter readings again so they can accuratly guess a months usage. more lying assurances that it will be sorted and to ignore the final demand.

so today a letter from the debt collectors arrives saying we haven't contacted eon and threatening court action!!!!

RAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!

what can we do/say to get this sorted? eon don't seem to know their arse from their elbow.

also i can't speak to anyone as dh didn't add my name to the account so im pissing and paniking and can't get it sorted as dh is at work and isn't answering his mobile.

I assume you have been paying something?

Have you been taking the names of the people you speak to on the phone?

We had a similar thing last year when they sent us a bill for £3,200 and when we disputed it and sorted it out they sent us a corrected one of £6000

we've not paid anything as we switched when we moved in. we disputed the amount when they sent us the £1876 bill

its been a year of phonecalls trying to sort it out

whoops £187

Is it 187 or 1876. either way it seems an awful lot.

Was there a reading the day you moved in?

the estate agent said they took readings before we moved in

we gave readings to southern elec when we switched but they say they have no record of this.

we also gave a reading to eon in january when the ridiculous bill came through

Contact E.on's complaints office here. The website also lists the processes you can follow if they don't settle your complaint to your satisfaction.

Oh I see.

I suspect that they don't give a shit because you are nottheir current customer.

Why don't you send an amount that would consistute an average months payment, for you, at that time of the year.

And maybe send copy of payment to their customer services adress and their debt collection dept recorded delivery and send it in full and final settlement of monies owed.

thanks nocake. dh will have to do it as they won't speak to me, even though i have phoned up before about this

should we phone the debt collectors or will that just make things worse as we have 'admitted' to it or something.

in all the time we were in dispute they never sent debt collection because we paid what we thought would minimally cover what we owed.
It does give you the moral authority . And it fucks with their computers

Send something. If you have been their a year you must know how much your monthly bill is.
Then tell the debt collectors "we have paid xx in rewspect of this matter. We remain in dispute that there are any further monies owed.

southern elec must have a reading though because they are billing you, they cannot pluck a number from anywhere. What does it say on your southern elec bills. Then take that info back to eon and tell them to stick it where the sun does not shine.

Southern elec will have all the details of when you made the switch to them, including the reading. What does it say on the very first bill you got from them?

Did you not do the reading yourself from the day you moved in and did you not inform the supplier that you were moving in and on what date along with the initial reading?

It is normal for the agent and the tenant to agree the initial reading. It should be on the schedule of inventory and the old tenant should have been charged up to the hand over date and have the same reaidng as you as their 'Checkout Reading'. The account shoudl have bene formally handed form the old tenenat to you, even for the few weeks that you were waiting to be switched to your new supplier.

If you did not take the reading and did not notify the electric company that you have moved in and on what date then I am afraid you have little chance of avoiding this. The old supplier has to charge someone.

i'll just go find a souther elec bill. back in a mo

Don't try to deal with these things over the phone. Write. Recorded delivery.

And finish with

I note from your letter that you intend to take me to court. Please do so. I welcome the opportunity to put this matter before the judge. Furthermore, I intend to take action against you for the costs, including inconvenience and stress, of your harrassment of me due to your incompetence.

I've written similar in the past and have had - shock horror - the matter dropped and a grovelling apology!

When you switch provider it can take 6 weeks for the changeover to happen

found one.

22 june to 14 sept is £159. so approx £53 a month.

beenbeta - we gave a reading to southern elec the day we moved in but they say we didn't

eon are trying to charge us for oct-jan even though we moved in on 4th december.

good idea hecate.

bamboo - is this the first bill you got from southern electric? Are they saying you switched on 22nd June?

get a copy of your tenancy agreement, highlight your moving in date. Send it with a copy of their letter attempting to charge you for the 2 months before you moved in, list every single phone call you have had to make to them about this matter, explain that "I am not legally responsible for any bills for a period before I took possession of a property but if you disagree, please let's go to court and I can ask the judge what they think about that" and finish with my bit above.

Do they have the handover date on their records. If so, that is good evidence you gave them a reading. Do you have it written down somewhere or even does the agent have the letter they sent to the old tenant with the final meter reading on it or even better your inventory signed with the reading on it?

MK- thats the first bill i could find, we phoned to switch on the 4th dec 09.

beenbeta - im not sure, the paper work is in a mess as we are moving house again. estate agents we have are useless, dh has asked them for the meter reading several times.

managed to get hold of dh, he spoke to the debt collectors and they say to contact e.on about it

he is going to work out our monthly average from our S.E bills send a cheque, which is what pagwatch suggested, along with a recorded delivery letter.

THIS is NOT your problem.

The owner of the property or his agent should have sorted this out.

A decent Agent will take the readings when a tenancy terminates and also take the meter readings at the start of a tenancy.

If you read the meter on the day you moved in that is the starting point.

Do not worry if they take you to Court. The Court will be able to see what has gone wrong.

dh spoke to eon last night and listening to him on the phone i realised i got the situation a bit wrong

what happened was:

eon sent us the bill for £187.

dh disputed it and eon reduced it down to £140 for oct-jan.

dh agreed to pay £60 for what we used in dec, LL payed the rest. done and dusted, or so we thought.

LL later decides the bill is wrong and we owe all the £140 and eon refund them and bill us for another £80 and it's this £80 the debt collectors are after.

dh and eon-man think idiot estate agent took the meter reading when previous tennants moved out in oct and gave that reading to eon when we moved in in dec.

dh not telling me he had paid the £60 had got me all confused about the situation

anyhoo, it's still not sorted about who owes this £80, we have to get the october meter reading from the idiot estate agent so we can compare it to the one they gave eon in december.