can someone give me advice regarding deby recovery?

xiandrinker

I was living at a previous address and I moved without paying the electric
bill it was something like 4 month ago for like £1000..
i phoned them up and told them something wasnt right..
anyway long story but to cut it short i refused to pay it on the grounds that the meter
reading was totally incorrect, fault meter i dont know?...

(i think it was from 01-08-07 - 01-04-08) worked out at 7/8 month usage... and im single so no way could of i ran that much up! anyway this morning i get a
letter from a weird company called buchananclark+wells out of the blue asking
for like £1800 and 35% on top of that if I don't pay it soon.

im pretty shocked they caught me lol.. but its still a debt i refuse to take
responsibility for as its completely unfair!

does anyone know of anyway I can shake this off? i understand i probably cant,
but i would be willing to pay like £10 a month to these idiots, if thats the case
would they have to accept that on the grounds im skint and jobless at the moment?.

any advice/help would be great as im kinda stressing out about it lol!

hayley11

I think they have to accept any payment you can afford to give them, might be worth contacting citizens advice, they'll know exactly where you stand. I would suggest not ringing them because debt collection agencies can be very nasty and put a lot of pressure on you to commit to something you can't afford.

xiandrinker

im an assertive person so people don't bother me in that way.

i was actually just thinking about ringing them up...calling their bluff,
tell them they have the wrong person or something because i never
actually had a tenancy agreement at that address as the landlord was an a$$
neither was my name on the rent or tax.. all that fun stuff so ill give that a try
because in theory they cant prove it was me living there.

thanks for the advice, if it fails ill go to citizens advice :beer:

skintandscared_2

Hopefully someone knowledgeable will be along to tell you the correct procedure, but just be careful of not making any arrangement to pay anything to anyone until you have agreed exactly what you owe. If you start making payments you could be admitting to liability for the whole debt as it stands now, and I don't know if you could then dispute the charge. It may be that you need to go back to the electricity supplier and speak to them about investigating the charges. It obviously would have been best to do this at the time you got the bill, and not just disappear, but hey ho

RAS

Hi

if the account was in your name, you are liable for the bill.

Have you checked the meter readings for when you moved in and moved out?

xiandrinker

well the thing is right, anyone could of used my name to open that account,
i dont have a single tie with that address so you know what, they can all kiss my a$$
i aint paying it. im building up the karma now to call... haha wish me luck
if i dont reply im in jail :rolleyes: