Being switched against my will

Spark

I have moved my electricity from British Gas to Ebico Equipower, Southern Electric was providing my electricity from the 21st of april.
Earlier this week I got a letter from Southern Electric dated 26/4/06 telling me "Were sorry to hear you're leaving us".
I called Southern Electric straight away and they told me that a demand was made from NPower to switch me from Southern Electric to NPower.
I never applied to switch to NPower, but I remember a few weeks ago two kids were going door to door, and they might have been working for NPower, as NPower is very actively canvassing in my area.
I don't know exactly as I told them straight away that I wasn't interested to switch after they asked me if I had a key electricity meter.Then I close the door as they were trying to carry on with their speech.
My point is that they might have sign me with NPower themselves to reach their target, now Southern Electric need to reverse the process.
There should be a law against that kind of things happening, as it is very much like fraud or identity theft.
When I asked Southern Electric who actually was providing my electricity right now, she said NPower, but how can that be when I never got any letters from NPower?

Kazonline

It could be a mistake. Although a lot of the time it is some bad sales person trying to get extra commission, there are some instances where people write the S number incorrectly and as a result apply to take over the wrong property,and therefore account. You can demand that they tell you how the transfer was applied for. If it was in writting there will obviously be paperwork you should have signed and they should be able to produce - and even if it was a verbal agreement, there would be a recording of this. When you are taking over in this way (error or deliberate fraud) it is called an erroneous transfer and you do have the right to have that contract effectively quashed.
All of this information is based on the knowledge I had working with a utility company over 18months ago - but I doubt if these things have changed.
KAz

Spark

Whether it is a mistake or not, Southern Electric should still be supplying my electricity from the 21st as it takes 4 to 6 weeks to switch anyway and as I said I never received any correspondence from NPower. Actually I was told to ignore any correspondence or letters (I suppose she was talking about letters from NPower).
Does anyone knows the phone number of EMPAS?
I suppose that's the best way to know who is supplying my electricity at the moment.

Ignite

Energy Watch (the watchdog for energy companies) has this advice. I've linked to it http://www.energywatch.org.uk/help_and_advice/problems_switching_supplier/index.asp

Andy

Xbigman

Phone Southern and report it as an erroneous transfer and tell them to call it back. Then phone Npower and tell them it is an erroneous transfer and is being recalled, also tell them you consider you have no contract with them and will see them in court if they bill you. Do not debate anything with them, do not get tricked into saying it is a transfer back or cancellation. It is an erroneous transfer and it never took place. Also, do not give Npower any meter readings as they are not and never were legally your supplier.
Then write to Npower (recorded deliver) stating the same details IE it is an erroneous transfer and you have no contract with them and will not pay any bill on that grounds.
Regards


X

Martinmal1

I had an erroneous transfer made to N Power just over 12 months agoi got the usual sorry you are leaving and welcome to N Power, all i can think is one of there door to door agents got hold of my name and made everything else up on the sheet i was 20 years older than i actually am:mad: .

Fair play to N Power in the end someone personally came out to my house in days with all the paperwork i had "signed" to investigate and i got a cheque for £250 so not a bad result:beer:

Spark

Good on you Martinmal1, I never had any money in return, and it got my switch to Ebico very confusing, but at the end Southern Electric dealt with the problem swiftly and now I am fine, got both my gas and Electric with Ebico and got no problems at all now.
They shouldn't be able to switch people like that in the first place, I have a poster on my front door which says "cold callers are not welcome here", but obviously those ones didn't even know how to read.

CFC

Spark, you're right - they should not be able to switch people like that and they actually can't - it is often fraud by the agents.

A few years ago EDF had a massive problem with it, (before it was called EDF, it was LEB and another one I can't recall) and had to launch a multi million pound set of processes to fix it, including outbound audit calling to make sure people had actually really signed up for it.