In a slight pickle

patch3228

I am on a pre-payment gas and electric metre.

When I first started renting the LL handed me the top-up card and keys. There was a positive balance when he handed it over and we've always topped it up before it goes into the emergency fund.

Half a year later I receive a letter 'Intention of Court Action' from UDS (Utility Debt Services) demanding £56.44 payment on behalf of E.ON

They have given me 14 days to settle.

They have no person registered - just occupier ... and my question is:

IF tomorrow I decide to clear the amount (i.e hand over my precious identity, which right now they only know as occupier) even if I clear the balance, will this leave a negative mark on my credit rating history???

At this point I don't care who created the expense (me, previous tenant, landlord doing the fixing before we moved in) - I just wanna know if a negative will be held against me.

If there is even a slight chance it will affect my rating then I would not give my details and I'll think about how to resolve that later...

Thanks and please help, as I will prob pay this tomorrow (or sat) as I am going to talk to LL tomorrow evening!

Brian_Bullocks

patch3228 wrote: »

I am on a pre-payment gas and electric metre.

When I first started renting the LL handed me the top-up card and keys. There was a positive balance when he handed it over and we've always topped it up before it goes into the emergency fund.

Half a year later I receive a letter 'Intention of Court Action' from UDS (Utility Debt Services) demanding £56.44 payment on behalf of E.ON

They have given me 14 days to settle.

They have no person registered - just occupier ... and my question is:

IF tomorrow I decide to clear the amount (i.e hand over my precious identity, which right now they only know as occupier) even if I clear the balance, will this leave a negative mark on my credit rating history???

At this point I don't care who created the expense (me, previous tenant, landlord doing the fixing before we moved in) - I just wanna know if a negative will be held against me.

If there is even a slight chance it will affect my rating then I would not give my details and I'll think about how to resolve that later...

Thanks and please help, as I will prob pay this tomorrow (or sat) as I am going to talk to LL tomorrow evening!

If they don't know your name, how can they register a black mark against your credit file at the County Court?

patch3228

They will know my name when I make the payment - in which case can this late payment be backdated onto my credit file affecting my rating?

paintpot

I am not an expert on prepayment meters by any means as I avoid them but do encounter them and they are nothing other than problematic.

When you moved in, did you take meter readings and can I ask why the bill has never been transferred into your name since you have lived there for 6 months or so? Even with prepayment meters, meter readings should be taken, the new occupier should be registered and they often send a new key/card to the new user but not always dependant on the provider.

Debts on prepayment meters can mount up for a variety of reasons but you seem to indicate that there was no debt when you moved in, usually you would see it being deducted from any credit in my experience, so the debt you have could be your usage and changes in the tariff.

The general rule is that debts can only be enforced against the named person, only there isn't one in this case so I would suspect that the utility company will try and discover who the "occupier is".

You may get more advice posting on the utility board from people who understand more about your debt.

Sprintz

its not your fault nor the landlord's (strangely enuf) nor the previous tenant!

it's obviously e.on who have messed up royaly!

you CANT be invoiced on a PRE-PAYMENT metre! surely this is against the law??

point of pre-payment metre is get money up - front and at worst you slip into the emergency fund .... Then you get cut off

if as you say you have never slipped into the red then how the bleeding hell are they charging you 50 odd quid??

get on the phone to em - your alrite

paintpot

That isn't true unfortunately but that is where I came unstuck when as a landlord I inherited one and didn't understand! You can get into debt! ETA but normally the debt gets added on to the meter which is a point I missed, in this case they have received a bill. It is madness and thus I do not understand the point of them, they give me a headache.

The utility companies have nearly driven me to suicide whenever I have had to deal with one especially one that is in debt and eats all my credit and I can't get it wiped despite constant calls.

Bloody useless devices!

Sprintz wrote: »

its not your fault nor the landlord's (strangely enuf) nor the previous tenant!

it's obviously e.on who have messed up royaly!

you CANT be invoiced on a PRE-PAYMENT metre! surely this is against the law??

point of pre-payment metre is get money up - front and at worst you slip into the emergency fund .... Then you get cut off

if as you say you have never slipped into the red then how the bleeding hell are they charging you 50 odd quid??

get on the phone to em - your alrite

MX5huggy

Sprintz wrote: »

its not your fault nor the landlord's (strangely enuf) nor the previous tenant!

it's obviously e.on who have messed up royaly!

you CANT be invoiced on a PRE-PAYMENT metre! surely this is against the law??

point of pre-payment metre is get money up - front and at worst you slip into the emergency fund .... Then you get cut off

if as you say you have never slipped into the red then how the bleeding hell are they charging you 50 odd quid??

get on the phone to em - your alrite

This is compleatly WRONG they still bill you quartely but the top ups you buy are credits on to your bill (like a monthy DD would be) these should meet the cost of the energy but oftern dont because the meters are charging at the wrong rate.

Don't pay it just yet, ring eon (are they even your supplier?) and tell them when you moved in I presume you did not take meter readings? Give them the current reading there might not be any outstading balance. Then find out when the outstanding monies date from, might be before you moved in.

patch3228

I was naive when I moved in, we did not get a reading for the utility and just kept the existing card/ keys given by the LL.

We top up £5 every so often and this gets used gradually - not instantly used to repay a debt

Could E.ON have got this wrong?

I rang the Debt Collection agency and they said there would be no negative impact on our credit history if we paid up...but are they just scum luring me into a false sense of security??

CIS

We had a problem like this in the flat we used to live in . We occupied the flat for amount 18 months and obviously had to top-up use electricity.

When we informed the company we were moving we were issued a bill for £200-300 for electricity used. Eventually through knowing someone who worked in the billing dept we found that the key had been incorrectly registered with the previous tenants details (we got a new key when we moved in and registered) and therefore the money was credited against the old account and the standing charge was building up on our account - we never received a bill during those 18 months until we left.

Once it was figured out what was happening it was easily fixed but it still took some time.

patch3228

Really should have got a new key and registered plus I didn't take any readings at the start - drat ignorance

I am about to show further ignorance, but if anyone can suggest whether my understanding is flawed:

If you take out a mobile contract and you don't pay then this will flag up in your credit report as a single late payment.

Can I apply this principle to a pre-payment metre?

So the fact that a debt has run up - surely this must impact the credit rating of somebody?

yay or nay?

MX5huggy

Stop worrying about your credit rating, I know it is a new national obsession, but no one is giving credit now anyway. You need to get the basics right first like having the gas and electric bills in your own name (this will help when getting credit as they always ask for a recient bill)