Since this is still rumbling on, I thought some might be interested in an update.
To recap, the debt collectors sent me a preposterous bill for £656. After some effort I established from the estate agents (both the letting and selling) that the account was with SSE. Both agents had checked mail while the house was empty and did not see a gas bill. The letting agent gave me a copy of the letter informing SSE of the new status and to send bills to me ℅ their office. The selling agent gave me a photo of the meter on final reading. I therefore managed to get through to SSE, and explained the situation thus far. I then sent them the photo of the final bill, as well as the letter from the agent.
They responded within 24 hours with a bill. But it was still absurdly high at £594. On further inspection I saw that it was based on meter readings that did not correspond, and trying to charge me for gas usage based on estimates. I wrote back to them pointing out these discrepancies.
When nothing happened for two weeks I decided to nudge them. A polite mail saying that I would really like to pay them some money.
A further two weeks passed and then I received a mail not from SSE but the bloody debt collectors again! They did however this time attach a revised SSE bill. By this time the total was down to £216, however the debt collectors expected me to pay more, to their account, and with this coy and slimy little explanation
"In addition to the balance of £215.92, our client has applied a £53.98 administration fee, making the total amount owed £269.90. Please be advised, this does not show on the invoice." (I'm sure this fee is for the debt collector to keep).
I noticed that within the SSE bill was £93 being "Total of last bill - you owed us'. But according to the bill it was the tenants that owed this, since this bill starts correctly on the day they left.
I wrote back to SSE (not the debt collector) pointing out this apparent discrepancy, asking them to explain it, and also explaining why I refused to pay any administration fee, repeating how LCS tried to suggest this was SSE making the charge. I gave them 7 days to reply, assuring them that the only amount in dispute is the £93 (plus the bogus admin fee).
If they don't reply by then I might actually pay to SSE £123, and let them know, since this would be a clear sign of a customer who has both the means and willingness to pay (one eye on the County Court judge here).
But dear Lord, what an absolute shower, and what will happen to customers with less means, stroppiness and spare time than I have?
Debt collection agencies are not permitted to pursue a contested debt, and a Court Order is the only legal proof that the utility company has an enforceable debt against you. Until they have Court Order you simply refuse to pay. SSE will not want to actually go to Court and lose and so they will eventually settle for whatever seems reasonable. How could SSE be successful in getting the Court to issue an order to pay a debt based on an estimated reading??
You are correctly pursuing it with SSE and refusing to talk to the agency. I would personally not pay anything that was not based on the readings after the tenants left. SSE can tell you exactly what the daily charge and unit prices are.
The bill they have sent me is detailed broken down by quarter, and so I can see that it is nearly all standing charges, which were expected and which legally I should pay. The £93 is separated out. So my thought was that paying the amounts that relate to the period after July 2 might be the right thing to do. Legal and moral high ground?
It’s troubling how they have behaved. I wonder how many other customers have experienced similar nonsense. It looks like, struggling to cope, they outsource as much as they can to debt collectors. And the debt collectors attempt to engage in data harvesting, seeking to collect phone numbers and addresses of customers to which they have no need nor right, and with no sense of irony invoking the Data Protection Act. I might complain about these gangsters anyway. Misrepresenting data protection laws is a Europe-wide problem, according to my wife. People who experience suspicious invocations of that law should ask “Whose data? And if mine, how exactly are you seeking to protect it through your demands?”
Thanks @Blucher. There’s been a development and its quite satisfying.
I wrote back to SSE earlier in the week, but copied LCS on it. Despite explicitly telling SSE that I would deal only with them, I got a reply late Thurs from LCS. There was a lot of back-pedalling. They said the admin fee could be deleted, and that they would forward from SSE any justification for the disputed £93. Then they tried to deny they were data harvesting by previously demanding my current phone and home address, and refusing to engage by email. They said they needed the info to “communicate with me more effectively” . Previously they had tried to claim that it was a data protection thing, to be sure they were not sending a gas bill to a fake email address. There is a problem with that, of course, because when they reappeared last week they were forwarding me exactly tha revised gas bill I had been demanding all along. 🤣
I’m definitely going to complain about LCS, because they clearly bully and intimidate less assertive and often distressed people, so they deserve a good kicking. I believe that the right destination for such a complaint is the FCA, unless anyone knows otherwise?
As for SSE i forwarded them this latest crassness from LCS, and expressed my satisfaction that the admin fee was off the table, but displeasure that they continued to deploy a debt collector. It’s back in their court, and then as you say, Ofgen need to know about this.
@PragueAddick - If this shower, LCS, is FCA registered, a June 22 MoneySavingExpert (MSE) article suggests that a complaint can be made to the Financial Ombudman Service, although the latter's website says that "We can look at complaints about the collection of debts in relation to most types of credit. However, we can’t consider them all (for example the collection of debts such as council tax, utility bills...)." https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/credit-borrowing-money/debt-collecting
The MSE article also suggests other avenues of complaint, such as the Credit Services' Association if the debt agency is registered with it, the Local Trading Standards Office (if the agency doesn't have a regulator or trade body) or, in appropriate cases, the Information Commissioner's Office. Complaints to any of these will create internal headaches for LCS and piss them off.
I used to get more angry when dealing with these sorts of companies you should expect better from. It is clear that the notion of customer service is from another time. I have come to terms with that.
Thanks @Blucher. There’s been a development and its quite satisfying.
I wrote back to SSE earlier in the week, but copied LCS on it. Despite explicitly telling SSE that I would deal only with them, I got a reply late Thurs from LCS. There was a lot of back-pedalling. They said the admin fee could be deleted, and that they would forward from SSE any justification for the disputed £93. Then they tried to deny they were data harvesting by previously demanding my current phone and home address, and refusing to engage by email. They said they needed the info to “communicate with me more effectively” . Previously they had tried to claim that it was a data protection thing, to be sure they were not sending a gas bill to a fake email address. There is a problem with that, of course, because when they reappeared last week they were forwarding me exactly tha revised gas bill I had been demanding all along. 🤣
I’m definitely going to complain about LCS, because they clearly bully and intimidate less assertive and often distressed people, so they deserve a good kicking. I believe that the right destination for such a complaint is the FCA, unless anyone knows otherwise?
As for SSE i forwarded them this latest crassness from LCS, and expressed my satisfaction that the admin fee was off the table, but displeasure that they continued to deploy a debt collector. It’s back in their court, and then as you say, Ofgen need to know about this.
Hi @PragueAddick, as you imply 1st Locate (trading as LCS) are indeed authorised and regulated by the FCA. My understanding (but please check as I may be out of date) is that the authorisation and hence the regulation only applies to the collection/administration of debts arising under credit agreements, consumer hire agreements and regulated peer-to-peer loans. Outstanding debts in respect of utility debts and company debts are excluded as they are not credit agreements. (But see below)
If correct, that seems to me to be a bit of a lacuna in the legislation. So, in the first instance I would make a formal complaint to the firm. (No need for a letter, an e-mail/tel con would suffice.) The FCA approved person responsible for complaints is an Executive Director, Darren Guest at
Apson House Colton Mill Bullerthorpe Lane Leeds West Yorkshire LS15 9JNL S 1 5 9 J N UNITED KINGDOM
+4401723861830 (Possibly his direct line)
Amusingly the Chief Executive is called Andrew Barclay.....surely not that one.....
The thing about FCA regulation though is the FCA's definition of a client: it includes a potential client. So, does the FCA overarching requirement for a firm to communicate with a client in a "clear, fair and not misleading" way apply? Possibly not for you because it is likely the utility company is the client and not you. But will LCS know that? Probably not. So you could, maybe, fool them into raising a formal complaint and including it in their complaints register, which the FCA will get to see. If nothing else, it could give them as much aggravation as you've had. You might even get an ex-gratia payment!
Yesterday crossed a line. The debt collector promised that it would return with an explanation for the part of the bill which I had disputed due to it appearing to relate to the time when my tenants were still there. Instead they came back with exactly the same bill, and with no explanation. So I decided it's time for Ofgem. But first I paid SSE the £122 that I clearly should pay, told them that, (pointing out the difference between good faith and good will ) and that I was going to Ofgem.
And so far I am very impressed with Ofgem. The on-line process was very clear and slick, at least until I tried to upload the supporting documents. Even though I pasted them all in one Word document, it didn't look clear to me whether it had gone through. So I called them this morning, got through straight away and the lady could not have been more helpful. Not just polite but clearly aiming to get the process under way. She outlined the stages of the process and how long it takes (probably 8 weeks unless SSE cave in). She made sure that I was not in any kind of financial difficulty because of the dispute, even if she must have recognised that I'm just a stroppy bastard bent on retribution Exemplary.
So if anyone else feels they are in trouble with overcharging utilities, do not hesitate to check out the ombudsman service. It is well set up with well-trained people, at least based on my experience today.
Prague I admire your bloody-mindedness on this. I had letters chasing gas and electric on my dad's place 3 years after he died, from EDF, with his name spelled wrong as well. I'd sent them meter readings at the time but had no proof and had handed the keys back within 2 weeks. They were after over £300, presumably because L&Q had not bothered to register the utilities and used them until a new tenant moved in. After 3 goes at long phone calls to their call centre they agreed to refer it to their internal write off panel and I've heard nothing more.
Prague I admire your bloody-mindedness on this. I had letters chasing gas and electric on my dad's place 3 years after he died, from EDF, with his name spelled wrong as well. I'd sent them meter readings at the time but had no proof and had handed the keys back within 2 weeks. They were after over £300, presumably because L&Q had not bothered to register the utilities and used them until a new tenant moved in. After 3 goes at long phone calls to their call centre they agreed to refer it to their internal write off panel and I've heard nothing more.
Basically, I won hands down. Or rather, and this is important, the Ofgem Ombudsman won it for me. Without them, I have no idea what I would have done, other than pay up far more than I owed. The original demand was for £656. Having finally extracted a proper bill from SSE I paid them £122 which seemed the legit amount, and then handed over to Ofgem. At the end of their process Ofgem agreed that £122 was all I owed and in addition once Ofgem started the process SSE capitulated straight away and offered to pay me £50 for being dicks. Ofgem have further told them to make sure any credit marks on my file are removed (there don't seem to be any, as it happens). They also told SSE that they were wrong to involve the debtcollectors as there was no evidence SSE had tried to deal with me directly, even though they had been given all contact details by my letting agent
So I'd encourage anyone in a similar position to contact Ofgem. Just make sure that you have completed eight weeks of trying to resolve it yourself. I undershot that criterion by about three days due to confusing an email from the earlier electricity bill demand from LCS, and that delayed things a bit. The website and process are exemplary, and I'm not sure how many other countries have similar setups that work so well. Certainly not this one I call home now.
As for SSE, you just wonder how many people have been bullied by them into paying far more than they should. And that's going to get worse in the coming months as the energy bill soar.
Comments
I suppose there’ll be something in the energy company’s T&Cs about admin charges but it can’t be exercised in an irrational and wholly unreasonable way by them or their debt collectors. The internal complaints procedures are probably totally ineffective but what about the Energy Ombudsman ? If nothing else, it will create extra work for SSE and someone sensible may actually have to look at the case - https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/making-complaint-about-your-energy-supplier-or-network-operator
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/credit-borrowing-money/debt-collecting
The MSE article also suggests other avenues of complaint, such as the Credit Services' Association if the debt agency is registered with it, the Local Trading Standards Office (if the agency doesn't have a regulator or trade body) or, in appropriate cases, the Information Commissioner's Office. Complaints to any of these will create internal headaches for LCS and piss them off.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/06/hundreds-of-households-wrongly-sent-legal-letters-saying-they-ow/
Good luck with it !
If correct, that seems to me to be a bit of a lacuna in the legislation. So, in the first instance I would make a formal complaint to the firm. (No need for a letter, an e-mail/tel con would suffice.) The FCA approved person responsible for complaints is an Executive Director, Darren Guest at
Colton Mill
Bullerthorpe Lane
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS15 9JNL S 1 5 9 J N
UNITED KINGDOM
Amusingly the Chief Executive is called Andrew Barclay.....surely not that one.....
The thing about FCA regulation though is the FCA's definition of a client: it includes a potential client. So, does the FCA overarching requirement for a firm to communicate with a client in a "clear, fair and not misleading" way apply? Possibly not for you because it is likely the utility company is the client and not you. But will LCS know that? Probably not. So you could, maybe, fool them into raising a formal complaint and including it in their complaints register, which the FCA will get to see. If nothing else, it could give them as much aggravation as you've had. You might even get an ex-gratia payment!
Yesterday crossed a line. The debt collector promised that it would return with an explanation for the part of the bill which I had disputed due to it appearing to relate to the time when my tenants were still there. Instead they came back with exactly the same bill, and with no explanation. So I decided it's time for Ofgem. But first I paid SSE the £122 that I clearly should pay, told them that, (pointing out the difference between good faith and good will
And so far I am very impressed with Ofgem. The on-line process was very clear and slick, at least until I tried to upload the supporting documents. Even though I pasted them all in one Word document, it didn't look clear to me whether it had gone through. So I called them this morning, got through straight away and the lady could not have been more helpful. Not just polite but clearly aiming to get the process under way. She outlined the stages of the process and how long it takes (probably 8 weeks unless SSE cave in). She made sure that I was not in any kind of financial difficulty because of the dispute, even if she must have recognised that I'm just a stroppy bastard bent on retribution
So if anyone else feels they are in trouble with overcharging utilities, do not hesitate to check out the ombudsman service. It is well set up with well-trained people, at least based on my experience today.
I had letters chasing gas and electric on my dad's place 3 years after he died, from EDF, with his name spelled wrong as well. I'd sent them meter readings at the time but had no proof and had handed the keys back within 2 weeks. They were after over £300, presumably because L&Q had not bothered to register the utilities and used them until a new tenant moved in.
After 3 goes at long phone calls to their call centre they agreed to refer it to their internal write off panel and I've heard nothing more.
It pays to be awkward
Basically, I won hands down. Or rather, and this is important, the Ofgem Ombudsman won it for me. Without them, I have no idea what I would have done, other than pay up far more than I owed. The original demand was for £656. Having finally extracted a proper bill from SSE I paid them £122 which seemed the legit amount, and then handed over to Ofgem. At the end of their process Ofgem agreed that £122 was all I owed and in addition once Ofgem started the process SSE capitulated straight away and offered to pay me £50 for being dicks. Ofgem have further told them to make sure any credit marks on my file are removed (there don't seem to be any, as it happens). They also told SSE that they were wrong to involve the debtcollectors as there was no evidence SSE had tried to deal with me directly, even though they had been given all contact details by my letting agent
So I'd encourage anyone in a similar position to contact Ofgem. Just make sure that you have completed eight weeks of trying to resolve it yourself. I undershot that criterion by about three days due to confusing an email from the earlier electricity bill demand from LCS, and that delayed things a bit. The website and process are exemplary, and I'm not sure how many other countries have similar setups that work so well. Certainly not this one I call home now.
As for SSE, you just wonder how many people have been bullied by them into paying far more than they should. And that's going to get worse in the coming months as the energy bill soar.