Urgent! Received bill when were on prepay (now in hands of debt company!)

honeyD

My parents moved home a couple of weeks ago and I received a letter for them from Scottish Power saying they owe near to £200 for electricity used from December 07 to March 08. I dont understand how this can be since they have always paid by prepay key/card.
My dad called them and they say it is owed and maybe they used the wrong key.. How can they use the electric if they used the wrong key?
The guy said maybe the payment has gone to another company... my Dad said "Ok, so Im using your card, getting electric but the money is going to another company? Oook" Does not make sense at all!
My Dad called again and spoke to a woman who said she would put a claim in for the money since it looks like we have used the wrong key (we know we havent) so she will have to find where the money went.

Now today, I received another letter for them which is a formal demand from a debt collection agency for £217.57, which includes a 15% admin fee :mad: They also want this bill paying no later than 3 October 2008.. 2 days! There is no way my parents can pay this! And to be honest I dont see why they should have to!
My Dad has now been on the phone with this company who say it is because they have been on the wrong tariff for the LAST 5 YEARS! How can this be?! And how is this their fault? Surely during those 5 years they should have realised?!
Im confused as to the first letter which said the dates 'December 07 to March 08' but now they try to say its for 5 years?

Does anyone have any advice? Will they have to pay this? It seems ridiculous that they expect them to pay twice for the electric when this isnt their fault at all!

Thanks

Premier_2

Ok, a couple of separate issues here.

First of all the debt collection agency. Contact them immediately and explain you don't believe the money is owed at all as you understand the initial bill was held in dispute by Scottish Power and you are still awating it's resolution.

You should also contact Scottish Power and find out where this dispute process currently is - according to your post the last you heard from SP was that thay were investigating where the money had gone.


The other issue is how come a debt arose at all. To be honest, I doubt a wrong key card was used too (but perhaps it was and if that was the case then it would allow you to use electricity whilst your 'account' wasn't being credited with the money being loaded onto the card.
You need to clearly understand that when you use a pre-payment meter it is not like using a vending machine - just because you are provided with the goods does not imply you have correctly paid for them in full. All a pre-payment meter does is ensures you pay something as you go and then hopefully that will meet the bill when it is generated (assuming you are loading the correct account by using a correct card allocated to you)

This is where the more likely shortfall arises - the meter has perhaps not been updated with the correct tariff for some reason so you've been dispensed with electricity at below the cost price. As I said, just because you've been supplied it does not mean you have paid for it in full and any shortfall will be accounted for eventually - in this case when the account was closed due to you leaving the property.

jlwhite

The situation with these pre-payment meters is disgusting and it's about time something was done about it. The people these meters are for are in situations where they are on limited income, or who are not good at budgeting / have had debt problems. The fact that these meters are able to build up a debt at all is wrong, thewhole thing with Pre-Pay is that you think you've already paid for the gas/electric you are using. I had no idea that debts where able to build up this this until it was too late and we owed money.

We were on a pre-payment card meter until around July last year when it was switched to a new keymeter. We have a couple of issues. When they changed the meter we had £29 credit left. The fitter left us with only £10 credit and said I would need to ring powergen to get the rest put back on. When i called them they said that this would be put on within the next three ''fill ups''. I put in £50-£65 every month so we called them again 3 months later as we hadn't seen any extra credit go onto the meter, and they said it had been credited in August. This didn't show on the statement we had recieved but as we couldn't prove it was there before they changed the meter we chalked it down to my mistake for not getting the fitter to give us a record of what was on the meter.
In December we got a letter from Eon (the new powergen) saying that we owed £109.36 because the old meter was set wrong. They said they had adjusted the meter to collect an extra £5 a week for 22 weeks (no dates though). We therefore assumed that the debt was being cleared from our account. A couple of months later I called to find out the exact date when the colllection would finish and was then informed that the message hadn't been sent to our meter until some time in January. After giving the information from our meter to the eon lady over the phone & her actually explaining to me what the readings meant we actually discovered that the message had gone to a meter with a different serial number to ours (1 digit different) No debt had been collected from us despite a letter stating that this was going ahead. We had gas installed in December so were not sure exactly how much electric we would have been using as we were no longer heating the house or water with electric. At this point she also then discovered that the orginal £19 from the old meter hadn't been sent to our account either.
After over an hour on the phone & speaking to a manager they told me the debt on the account had been reduced according to Energy Watch guidelines for people who had been allowed to get into debt with a pre-payment meter. They then agreed to give us credit for the weeks that, as far as we were concerned, we were already paying back the debt (7 weeks @£5 week =£35) and was told I would recieve a bill saying we owe about £35. I was told they would not go any lower than this despite all the inconvienence. I was given a code to take to the Paypoint shop which would then immediately credit £19 onto my key to credit us for the money from the old meter.

I recieved a statement a week later which was a very confusing so I called and spoke to a man from Eon, after a fairly long conversation about the complexities of what was happening with our account he agreed to remove the debt from our account & ensure the correct credit amount of what was in the meter at the time was what was showing on the statement.
We then recieved a letter 10 days later stating that there is currently a balance of £52 on the account but we are in debt for £64.07.
I called back again and they said the messages were automated and she couldn't stop it being sent to tell the meter to collect the debt and basically to ''keep an eye on the meter''. Eventually we got it all sorted and the debt was wiped out but not before MUCH STRESS!

I have taken many meter readings since then and keep an eye on it to make sure there is no debt showing on the meter, the thing that is very worrying though is that we have has a couple of letters with price rises on them and the price we are being charged is still the same on the meter. When we speak to Eon all they can tell me is that it will change within the next three 'top-ups'. What a ridiculous situation!

Sorry to babble on- I know it doesn't really help your situation but it helps to know they do this to lots of people.

I'd advise you to contact Energy Watch and get some serious advice. Ring the debt collection agancy STRAIGHT AWAY and explain the situation (we had a bill from Talktalk that was left on our account and went to an agency - which we didn't owe) they are often more understanding than you'd expect and they may at least put a freeze on any more charges going on for a few days to give you chance to try to sort it out. Then call Scottish Power and ask them to recall this debt from the agency until it has been properly investigated. Tell them that you have spoken to Energy Watch and that you will be conacting your solicitor after your call to them (just to let them know you are serious)

Good Luck, let us know how you get on.

honeyD

The debt collection advisor said they will open an investigation and contact my Dad again in a week or two, which is exactly what SP said they would do and didnt. :mad:

jlwhite

Did they say they would freeze it though so you won't get any more charges accumulating in the meantime. Have you contacted Energy Watch?

honeyD

My Dad is talking to the consumer watchdog people (not sure who as he hasnt said) and they are saying since he doesnt have receipts then he is liable to pay, and also they can only backdate the bill for 1 year since he doesnt have the 5 years of receipts. Im furious! They are in no position to be paying this bill, after paying for everything at the moment they have £30 left for 2 weeks of food for 3 people and 2 dogs They got other bills this week too so are struggling since moving.

Also, it makes me wonder where the money they paid for the electric has gone? Surely scottish power should be finding out? Then at least my parents could claim it back or something?
Edit: Unless it is actually for the wrong tariff, but how can they claim that back for 5 years? Shouldnt they have noticed before now?

lilacclaire

Hi, firstly with the debt collection agency, they deal with utility companies mistakes ALL the time, so they will do what they have said.
They will freeze the 'account' on their system and send a query to Scottish Power with the points you have raised. Scottish Power HAVE to answer the queries for the debt collection agency to continue to pursue the debt, otherwise the collection agency will just close their books on it. It has to be a 'legitimate' debt, ie not something they've made up off the top of their heads.
It will take a least a couple of weeks, your dad may receive another nice letter from the collection agency (remember its automated, so don't get upset at the content).
This means that Scottish Power will have replied to the debt collection agency answering the queries, thus they take the hold off the account and it starts the collection process again.
Scottish Power should write to your father at the same time so he knows what is going on, but they probably won't....... !

honeyD

The Watchdog people have said to my Dad:
"With reference to billing post, SP policy and procedures regarding the use of prepayment meters state that they will never back bill debts over 1 year old if it is at fault for not recalibrating the meter"
However, SP insist they can backdate the 5 years
My Dad also doesnt know what the bill is actually for since there are contradictions between what SP say and what the debt company say. SP said it was for months Dec 07 to March 08 and debt place says its for 5 years on the wrong tariff. He cant get an answer "until its been investigated".

honeyD

SP have decided to squash the debt for Dec to March and are now investigating the 5 year tariff stuff