What a charming letter...

[AdamW]

I had a letter today, addressed to "The Resident" (not Adam W), dated mid August, telling me that if I didn't pay £600 to a certain electricity provider (who I have never had any dealings with other than to tell their sales monkeys to p*ss off from my doorstep) they were sending the bailiffs round by the 24th of August. Also said they might give me a prepay meter, or even cut me off.

"Crikey" thought I. I don't want CCJs or credit blacklistings due to their error, so I rang their number immediately, as it said to on the letter. What response do you think I got? 10 minutes on hold being told my call was important (well durrr, you're threatening me with burglary, and then sending me the bill for the burglars). No response.

So, I now have to spend a Sunday at my parents' house wondering if there is someone crowbarring my door open and stealing my telly to sell at auction! Great start to a week off work. Unfortunately their HQ is in Warrington, a bit far to go to have an appointment with a real person (I have found with other companies that turning up at their HQ does make things happen a lot quicker, although they usually assume you are an industrial customer!).

Has anyone had problems like this before? Is there some kind of ombudsman scheme that governs the utility companies, only I'm in two minds to report them for harassing a non-customer! I mean seriously, if one of us lot wrote a letter to a stranger saying "Pay me lots of money or bad things will happen, here's my address" then the police would be round arresting us for extortion. A big company does it, and it's OK. Just an error.

Power generally seems to have been put in the hands of cretins.

 

[big-all]

wasnt the regulator offgen

 

[AdamW]

Cheers big all, I googled it and you were close: Ofgem.

Worth remembering as I have a feeling this is going to take a lot of sorting out! It will be a useful catchphrase when talking to the supplier in question: if they refuse to give me the information that I require to satisfy myself that the matter is resolved correctly, I will just say "Well, I will have to tell Ofgem you are being uncooperative!"

EDIT: Even better, there is an offshoot of Ofgem called Energywatch who appear to be there to help me get this sorted out.

That's a real load off, thanks for that.

 

[big-all]

or this one just looked the regulators now seem to be
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=RESOURCES&itemId=1074487993
ok not domestic but commercial advice

 

[david and julie]

I'm getting the same thing with the telly licence people. My mums house is on the market. There is no telly in the house because the house is empty.

They send you demands with red wording on the OUTSIDE of the envelope, these demands are designed to embarass you, even though you don't owe them. It doesn't matter what you say they just want your money and don't believe you.

I have phoned them three times now about it, last time a lady (?) said tough if you don't like it and think we are harassing you, speak to your MP.

I say let them break in(all bluff) and get a claim in good style.

 

[TexMex]

I had that very problem. My problem was with a firm called "Southern Electricity". They sent me a gas bill (which I still pay British Gas for).

I called the 0800 number that they gave for credit card payments. The girl on the phone told me that she could only deal with payments and I would have to call another number (not a freephone one), to sort out the problem. I explained to her "I do not owe your firm a penny, not EVEN the cost of a phone call, or a stamp, so if you would like to make an internal call to the relevant department to call me, I will talk to them".

Eventually, after another few demanding letters, I recieved a demanding phone call! I explained to them that I had never signed a contract with them and, furthermore, my contract is with British Gas. They then told me, "but you have two gas supplies at your premises, you pay British Gas for one, and us for the other". They wouldn't believe me when I pointed out that I have a single dwelling with just one meter.

"Can you tell us the serial number of your gas meter" they asked.
"No, you tell me what you think it is" I said.
"I'm sorry sir we are not allowed to give that information out over the phone" She replies.
"In that case, what kind of mug do you take me for? Armed with that information you could make your claims look even more convincing!"
"In that case sir, you will have to get in touch with TransCo. They will confirm us as one of your suppliers".

I called Transco, who informed me, that thier records, do indeed, show two gas meters at my premisis, but they are not allowed to tell me the serial numbers. I then gave them the serial number of the one I actually have. They confirmed that it is the one that British Gas have the contract for. I assured them that I have no other meter on my property. "In that case, you will have to get in touch with Southern Electricity to let them know".

I callled Southern Electricity back and informed them that this meter does not exist, But they insisted that they would need to know the serial number of my actual meter to sort this out.

I said, "well since you will not tell me the serial number of this non existant meter, I sure as hell, aint gonna tell you the serial number of my real one" "
"That's alright, we can get it from TransCo".

Finally I got a letter from a Solicitor acting on their behalf threatening Court Action. I sent a letter back saying that I am not going to pay a penny untill I have seen a contract, that I allegedly signed, with a valid gas meter serial number, that is on my premisis. I will happily go to court, and insist on the same in the dock.

I never heard any more! This whole fiasco took about 2 years to play out!

I also had a similar scenario with a firm calling themselves "Oxford Associates" They claimed that they had taken over all the telephone business of some other company. I got straight onto them and pointed out that I pay my bills to BT, and have never signed a contract with anyone else.

Once again this ended up with a credit recovery agency. I sent them a letter demanding a copy of the contract that I have allegedly signed. If this was not forthcoming, I will see them in court and demand it there. I never heard any more from them either.

 

[big-all]

ive been told to
off fluk but im not shure what direction this advise was aimed

big all

 

[TexMex]

Just a bit of the subject. A fellow I know in Toot Hill, Essex. recieved a Water bill from Thames Water. He got onto them and pointed out that all of his water comes from a natural spring on his land, and all of his waste is dealt with, by means of a Septic Tank. They claimed that "Everyone with a postcode, is eligible to pay water rates". He let them take them to court and the decision went in his favour.

The following year he got another bill. Once again it went to court, and once again the decision went in his favour. Immediately after this, he got a court injunction to stop Thames Water sending him any more bills. The following year he recieved another bill and successfully took Thames Water to court for breach of the injunction. He recieved £500 compensation!

 

[ZenStalinist]

Privatised companies...

Thanks a lot maggie...



To be quite honest, here is the other problem of privatisation besides the whole issue of what of the proletariat: Synergy.

By nature, gas is a monopoly industry, as is electric. Thus it works best if ONE organization deals with the entirity of it, or at an absolute maximum, at least manages, and remains accountable for, subcontracting in areas it is not capable of maintaining. Any current electricity market is an illusion. It is based on rough practices to say the least. There is also lack of communication, and often this false market becomes extremely competitive, and this poor communication is exploited by the corporations and salesmen - plus middle managers set quotas and rarely checked up on. Its not a surprise fraud is so often used because this lack of synergy and communication tends to prevent the perpetrator from being punished. So once again, this allows good honest working and working class people to be exploited by corporate roberry and burglary.

I say that we cannot continue with this toy market and that nationalisation and reform would prevent this. Then there would be no holes to exploit, and no sales quotas to meet because everyone is using the same provider. Similarly it would not allow a corporate ogliarchy of the utilities business.

Probably here I've been babbling, I think I have once again not made myself clear, often this is a problem of mine, but I hope you get the jist of WHERE the problems of privatisation lies, and how this sort of thing happens.

The case probably here is a white collar worker or cog given an unworkable quota of unpaid debts to have recollected, and as a result will have forged this account, usually quite easy to do thanks to dual recording of paperwork and electronic information (the paper way of doing things often results in things being forgotten to be put into the computer system, thus there is a correction mechanism to insert predated information) - all the person would have to do is insert a new record - look up a postcode, think of a house number (if you have a low house numbber or an isolated house you are more likely to be targeted), and create a meter serial (or create a fictional meter as paart of a new supply and have that added to the debt list!)

To be quite honest, I can't blame this person hugely - they have to make ends meet, and are given these demands to meet. It's these people who also retain their jobs for meeting quotas and good performance and are only sacked when their doing become so large as to be a concern. OF course this may not be the case - I think maybe in a lot of cases teh businesses are DIRECTLY trying to con the consumer (or the person who is not a consumer in this case).

What was maggie thinking?



Anyways, lets not derail this thread when there are other fora to discusss such things.

Personally, I'd request a re reading of this 'meter' and then see what they find!

Or maybe bring into question its accuracy ,"surely this meter can't be saying I use THAT much!". a fair claim for a meter that doesn't exist. IF it's charging you, it ain't accurate.

 

[mildmanneredjanitor]

When all the utilities were nationalised, they must have been making massive profits???

Why would you then sell these companies???

I can only think that the government were making such a inefficient hash of running the utilities, that they would rather have a cash lump sum instead...

Oh well, at least they've made good use of the money...

Given the choice, I'd rather my money go to the government for reinvestment in transport, healthcare etc. than lining the wallet of some chief exec.

 

[david and julie]

The government may make more money than you think from the privatised companies. I know they are grossing fortunes in turnover, but the gov takes half of it off them in different taxes. The government also had the lump sums which were partly used to reduce the PSBR at the time. Plus the gov can now claim these massive profits are outside of their control.

The dodgy sales though are the likes of BR. They had massive property assets which were undervalued and have now gone.(even so the gov still gets taxes from the rent etc)

I am not suggesting everything is now rosy, but these companies were performing badly when under political control.

What I find even more odd is that in many cases, the mangement, that were useless when in public ownership, are now sucessful(for themselves) fat cats. It must be really easy to run these big concerns.

 

[big-all]

heeelllooo m m j

maggies idea

sell the family silver its the only way her capitalist freinds can get
there hands on it but make shure you sell it of cheap so they can
make the most money she didnt belive in state intervention

if its owned by the state nobody can asset strip or make money from it

what other country in the world allowes there water gas electric transport
air contol[nearly] coal to be controled without regards to what country
they are from

big all

 

[mildmanneredjanitor]

Thing is, I think the government assumes we are all stupid.

One of the arguments was that it was breaking up the monopoly of say gas, so there would be competition.

Now at face value this seems good. Until you think that it means another party has his fingers well and truly stuck in the pie and wants his share of the profits too!

Also, with all the additional staff required to man all of these telesales centres, it's gotta be paid for somehow, I wonder how???

Haven't prices gone up recently??? Suprise suprise!

Does Transco (British Gas) have to pay tax?? If they don't then British Gas should be able to offer a more competitive price...

 

[mildmanneredjanitor]

Another thought...

How many MP's have personal portfolios of shares including, BT, Gas, Electric, Water and Railway companies...

Must be nice to have lots of spare cash to invest in new monopolies...

 

[big-all]

i think your right there m m j
with only a few exception mps are unlikely to pass up an insider
chance to invest in stocks and shares
and a lot more take them up legit but leave there priciples in tatters
[but they justify it to themselves as being legitimate and not against
there principles ]

big all