DEBT COLLECTION LETTER?!

[jessicaandrebeccasmummy]

Just had a debt collection letter in the post from a company acting on behalf of British Gas for the sum of nearly £150!

It relates to gas used at an address we lived at from July 2004 - February 2005 but they have not sent us a bill or anything! This is the first we know about it!

I have called the debt collection company and explained that due to being a forces family, we had moved 4 times in 2 years and could I please have some information of the dates this bill realtes to blah blah blah - and can you believe it - the debt collection company dont have a copy of it!

Did i just dream it, or is there not something that prevents utility companies claiming for debts owed after a 2 year period?!

Im in the shit big style with money at the moment anyway, so this has come as a bit of a shock.... we dont have £5 to spare let alone £150!!!

Any advice gratefully recieved x

Get onto your local CAB asap JARM.

They will be able to tell you what steps should have been taken and help you get the info you need to sort this out.

Good luck.

((hugs))firstly, secondly did u tell your agent u had moved or did u wait for the amr yto do it - they didn't tell our suppliers when we moved (thankfully we've kept the march out slip witht eh actual readings on it - some £60 less I might add than they said we owed) anyhow could be the bills for the tennants after you (hence why I rang BG myself to tell tehm we'd moved and the actual readings once I knew the army had relet the house)

(would BG have any details of the bill as well?)

thanks stg

munz hun - we were in such a rush when we moved from warminster (less than 3 weeks notice) that i cant remember if we phoned them or not! I also dont know what the final meter readings were as we didnt do the march out - it was done by the families office because we were supposed to march out at 10am in warminster but be in colchester at 12 noon to march in!!!

Oh god i feel such a fool, i know i will have to pay something if its for the right dates, but its going to be a case of how!!!

right well get on the blower to your old DHE office and ask them if they have the records still for a final figure so if it's an estimate (as ours was) you can fight the corner on that front. then tlak to CAB and BG and see how things go, BG should have a copy of the bill for u.

then negotiate witht eh collector and say you can only manage x amount (we did this thru BG when we swopped to powerd gen wioth collectors) they we're actually v good for us - we agreed to pay £30 p/m and they were fine but you'd need to negotiate how much you can afford to pay - are u still wiht the management thing? - might be worht seeing if u can add this bill to that?

Hi JARM,

IME, you can either spend hours pointlessly phoning British Gas at your expense in order to try and sort this out......

OR

contact EnergyWatch, and let them deal with it on your behalf.

Explain that this is the first contact you have had re this bill.

Energywatch will write to British Gas (they have a whole department at British Gas, just to deal with Energywatch complaints, such is the magnitude of their inability to grasp basic customer service!), and advise them to suspend your account until they have sent you a fully itemised bill.

They messed up the bills when we moved.

We have offered to pay the outstanding amount at £20 per month.

All of this was arranged via email through EnergyWatch (just google em!).

HTH.

WOW

THanks HCC - looks liek a plan! Anything to stop me dealing with it! Still waiting for a bill from the other house we lived in last year - and yes, suprise suprise, its BG! (havent had debt collection letters re that one yet!)

I just cant believe they have the balls to chuck something at a debt collection company with no back up or anything!

i had huge problems with an old gas company when i was expecting ds. long and short of it was i had decluttered a little too much but i knew i had had a final bill and settled it, being less than £20. however i had not kept bill and obtaining copies of cheques was time consuming and a nightmare. They claimed i owed over £300 at one point but i managed to prove some payment and ended up paying £60-80 iirc. i still don't believe i owed it at all but it was not worth the stress. The long and short of it is that i am meticulous about keeping all my bills for years now. Sorry this has happened, do reccomend calling BG as they may be ale to help with more details.

jarm still get the final figure if u can thou.

JARM, can't really add to what's been said already but just wanted to send you (((((hugs)))))

right guys - had a letter today....

reckon its from the date we moved in (9/7/04) to 31/8/05. We moved out on 28/2/05 but they will not take my word for it.

They want a copy of the tenancy agreement dating back to then - we dont have it. I am trying to get hold of the Defence Housing people in Warminster to see if they still have a copy, and if they dont, according to BG, we are going to be liable for the whole cost. Can they do that?

I am spitting shite over the way the woman was talking to me.... as if to say "oh ffs just pay up and leave me alone" - i refuse to pay £150 for gas that was used 6 months after i moved out!!!

HELP!

Have submitted complaint to EnergyWatch today as well. Im so angry!!!