Settling up outstanding bills.

dig4victory

I switched once before, from BG to N Power who provided no meter readings nor accurate monthly amounts to actually cover my usage, so we switched back.....at least we were paying a realistic rate to cover bills.

But my main point is this; when switching one still has to find the ££ to settle up any outstanding from the old supplier, and even though we should be paying enough to cover it, it was still a large bill before, which put us off somewhat as though we need to reduce our outgoings we had to find a lump sum to settle.:eek:

It would help if these companies could come to a customer-friendly agreement to claim back any outstanding amounts from perhaps a short agreed period of higher payments from the new supplier. Does this make sense?

Oh well - just a gripe really.

KimYeovil

If you knew the payments were not realistic then surely you were putting the correct sum aside for the inevitable point when the bill would be reconciled?

When you say nPower provided no meter readings are you saying they ignored all your submissions? That is negligent of them.

At least with direct debits you are free to switch to a new supplier straight away - you do not need to pay up beforehand so it does give you a few weeks to grab the money.

Cardew

dig4victory wrote: »

It would help if these companies could come to a customer-friendly agreement to claim back any outstanding amounts from perhaps a short agreed period of higher payments from the new supplier. Does this make sense?

No I am afraid it doesn't make sense.

There are many people in this country who would run up large debit balances with a company, make an agreement to pay this back to them - switch - and immediately break the agreement.

They would move from company to company leaving a trail of bad debts and it is simply a civil debt.

You can just see their justifaction, robbing B******s ripping us off - massive profits - serve them right!!

As for transferring a debt to the new company. Company A contacts Company B and states "we have a customer who can't pay his debts, and wants to switch to you. Please pay us £xxx to pay off his debts and you can have him as your customer"!

Run that by me again;)

Holding on to the customer until his debts are cleared is the only hold the companies have in this situation.

dig4victory

Well, our payments were'nt cheap monthly, for us anyway and when we got our quarterly statement we seemed to be covering our usage and be in credit. We also paid by DDM, and were simply surprised at the amount they suggested we had used since the last quarterly statement to the point of reading to switch.

Of course my idea above doesn't make sense - t'was a dream only!

NPower sent no one around to read the meter for commencement of contract and there was a kerfuffle about how much was owed to them.

Quote KimYeovil:
At least with direct debits you are free to switch to a new supplier straight away - you do not need to pay up beforehand so it does give you a few weeks to grab the money.

We were paying by DDM and as I said before thought we were paying the right amount, which was more than other suppliers and had bills for over £100 for each utility as 'final payment'.

I'm finding it all very confusing......:(