Fools at Atlantic Electric & Gas

SGE1

Up until a year ago when we switched, we had our leccy and gas with Atlantic.

I return home from work today to find a letter from them, out of the blue, threatening me with legal action unless I paid an 'unpaid bill' within 48 hours of 'receiving this letter'. Given that:
1) They haven't provided us with any utilities for over a year; and
2) When we switched, they owed us money and refunded it,
I was a little confused (and frankly a bit p*ssed off).

So I ring up, and as my anger increases the longer I'm on hold (18 minutes, if anyone cares), I demand to know why I've received a threatening letter that makes no sense. I ask for proof of this alleged 'unpaid bill' they're talking about, and I ask them why it took them a year to work it out; and last but not least, I ask them how on earth they propose to work out when '48 hours of you receiving this letter' is, given that they haven't sent it recorded delivery.

Turns out they refunded us twice a year ago - their fault entirely. So, it wasn't an 'unpaid bill', more like an Atlantic c*ck-up; and in fact they have no way of knowing when you've opened the letter, so the '48 hours' deadline is just a cheap ploy to scare people (who likely aren't the ones who've done anything wrong). They apparently can't control the systems that send out these automatic letters (clearly technology has mutated into a beast man no longer has control over, here comes the Terminator). The tone of the kins gentleman on the other end of the line suggests that my request to not receive irrelevant threatening letters is unreasonable.

Now I do vaguely remember receiving the same sum twice from them, but thought nothing of it. Now they want it back. Interestingly, had they written me a nice letter explaining their mistake and asking for their money back within a reasonable amount of time (they waited a year, surely they can wait a little longer than an extra 48 hours), I would have happily done it. But the tone of the letter (and the unapologetic tone of the call centre operator) have inspired me to try to make them as annoyed with me as I am annoyed with them (and inspired enough to rant here).

Does anyone know of any way I could refuse to pay, given that it was a mistake they made? Why should I be forced to faff around and send them a cheque, and waste time (and money) on the phone trying to sort out a problem they caused, and failed so abominably to solve themselves?

Any ideas?

Cardew

It seems you acknowledge that the debt is valid - albeit their accounting is at fault, which is not an unusual situation with any of the Utility companies.

So I can't see any way you can legally refuse to pay.

The trouble is you won't get them 'annoyed' as this is an everyday situation for them. After the routine harassment from their automatically generated letters they will pass the file to a Debt Collection Agency(DCA) with all the hassle of an entry on your credit record and possible court action.

So will you not be cutting off your nose etc?

Plushchris

If you went to a cashpoint and selected to withdraw £100 and it gave you £200 would you "think nothing of it" and leave it until the bank chase you?

Atlantic are perfectly within their right to request the money back, I'm surprised its taken them this long though, I'm with Cardew on this one, you wont "annoy" Atlantic in the slightest, they will just send it to a DCA and you will end up with a black mark on your credit file, Atlantic wont get annoyed, they probably wont even give a monkeys.

adprob

Where they have gone about this in a rather heavy handed way I don't see how you can avoid paying the money back.
If you your bank out too much money in your bank account and then you spent it they would be entitled to take the money back, although they would prob just take it and then tell you! lol
Your only recourse would be to phone / write to them about the way they have handled this and arrange a timescale to pay this back.

Vestra

You were refunded twice and you didn't think anything of it? Yes you might just need to pay it back.

SGE1

Vestra wrote: »

You were refunded twice and you didn't think anything of it? Yes you might just need to pay it back.

I think you'll find I said I vaguely remember receiving the same amount twice, not that I was aware of being refunded twice - since I was getting refunds for both gas and elec, I was expecting 2 payments. The identical amount did seem a little odd, but only a little. There are a significant number of legal loopholes involving time periods etc, so that was more the sort of input I was hoping for.

But thanks for your helpful comment anyway.

KimYeovil

So you admit you are looking for a loophole to keep money that is not yours.

I trust you would be happy if you had been underpaid but did not notice.