Received Debt Collecting letter from Eon for address i've never lived at!

dawnie1972

Moved into a property last year - residential bungalow on a farm. Received a bill for the property i'd left for £160 despite being on a prepayment meter and being £40 in credit - Eon offered no explanation for this. When i found out they supplied the farm bungalow i'd moved to i set about leaving them (the property was also down as a business - the previous tenant hadn't bothered changing it - i did this straight away). It took them 10 months to sort it out - they were too incompetent for words!! by which time they'd supplied me with 10 months of electricity! Sorted it all out eventually. Yesterday i received a letter from a debt collecting agency on behalf of Eon for over £500 for a property in the same road that i never lived at!!!!! How do they get away with this - not only are they billing me for a residence i never lived at but surely this also goes as a debt against that property!!

DirectDebacle

Write to the DCA. Tell them that you have never lived at that property or been the energy account holder at that address. Ask them to check their information with EON. Ask the DCA to provide proof that you are liable for the outstanding charges.

Unless they write to you and tell you there has been an error with the records and your details were erroneously supplied, you will probably receive a more threatening letter demanding payment with the caveat that due to DPA they cannot provide you with the account details.

If that happens write back and tell them that until they can show you are liable you will not have any more contact with them. If they are claiming you owe money they have to provide full details of how this claim is made up. They probably can't.

AFAIK outstanding utility bills are the responsibility of the account holder and not attached to properties unless a charge has been placed upon the property by the energy company. In that case there is no need to instruct a DCA, as when the property is sold, the energy company would be one of the first in line to be paid out.

Never, never, ever, phone a DCA.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi dawnie1972,

It looks like you have three separate issues here, you received a final bill from your old property that had a pre-payment meter for £160, have you now had this sorted out? and asked E.ON how this came about.

Then you moved in to a bungalow that was registered as a business when it should be billed as domestic, you say it has taken 10 months to sort out, was this just to change from business to domestic? and is this now rectified? and have you been able to change supplier.

Now you have received debt collection letters for an address that you have never lived at, are any of these letters addressed to you by name? if not it may just be than E.ON were supplied with an incorrect forwarding address.

As I'm sure you know, you shouldn't open letters that are not addressed to you, they should be returned to sender.

Sorry about all the questions

Helena

terryw

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

<snip>

As I'm sure you know, you shouldn't open letters that are not addressed to you, they should be returned to sender.


Helena

Don't agree at all. By doing this attempts at criminal activity like fraud or ID theft can be nipped in the bud. And genuine errors can be put right much quicker.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi terryw,

I understand your point completely, the problem with opening other peoples mail is it's against the law.

Helena

terryw

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

Hi terryw,

I understand your point completely, the problem with opening other peoples mail is it's against the law.

Helena

Very doubtful if it is illegal to open mail which has been delivered to the correct address. The actual illegality is aimed at posties knicking stuff in the mail. See other posts on MSE. In any case, have you ever known of anyone who has been prosecuted for this alleged offence? I certainly have not.

m_13

From The Postal Services Act 2000:

84 Interfering with the mail: general
(1) A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, he—
(a) intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post, or
(b) intentionally opens a mail-bag.
(2) Subsections (2) to (5) of section 83 apply to subsection (1) above as they apply to subsection (1) of that section.
(3) A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him.
(4) Subsections (2) and (3) of section 83 (so far as they relate to the opening of postal packets) apply to subsection (3) above as they apply to subsection (1) of that section.
(5) A person who commits an offence under subsection (1) or (3) shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.

So, the offence occurs when you open a 'postal packet' (which includes a letter) which you know or reasonably suspect has been incorrectly delivered to you (because it has somebody else's name on it) only if you intend to act to that person's detriment and do not have a reasonable excuse.

If you have no idea who the person, have no intention of acting to that person's detriment is and have a reasonable excuse then no offence has occurred.

Premier_2

dawnie1972 wrote: »

Moved into a property last year - residential bungalow on a farm. Received a bill for the property i'd left for £160 despite being on a prepayment meter and being £40 in credit - Eon offered no explanation for this.

Tell them you do not acknowledge the bill and ask them to explain it If they can't, don't pay them
Utlimately, the worst that can happen is it'll end up in court where you say the same thing and the juage will ask them to explain it. If they can't explain it, the case will be thrown out.
(Note: Them explaining it and you understanding their explanation can be two separate things)

dawnie1972 wrote: »

When i found out they supplied the farm bungalow i'd moved to i set about leaving them (the property was also down as a business - the previous tenant hadn't bothered changing it - i did this straight away). It took them 10 months to sort it out - they were too incompetent for words!! by which time they'd supplied me with 10 months of electricity! Sorted it all out eventually.

All sorted (correct me if i'm wrong), that's good

dawnie1972 wrote: »

Yesterday i received a letter from a debt collecting agency on behalf of Eon for over £500 for a property in the same road that i never lived at!!!!! How do they get away with this - not only are they billing me for a residence i never lived at but surely this also goes as a debt against that property!!

Tell the dca & eon that you do not acknowledge the debt. Eon need to explain why they believe it relates to you.
I'm not sure what you mean by the debt going against the property.
Credit profiles relate to individuals not addresses.
If you mean they are attempting to get the debt secured against the property (unusaul at this stage), they'll need a court order for that.

DirectDebacle

It is unfortunate that energy company reps come on sites such as this in an attempt to resolve complaints but instead continue to display many of the characteristics that gave rise to the complaint in the first place.

The quote below shows that the original post was not read properly or if it were, was not understood.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

Hi dawnie1972,

.........Now you have received debt collection letters for an address that you have never lived at, are any of these letters addressed to you by name? if not it may just be than E.ON were supplied with an incorrect forwarding address.

As I'm sure you know, you shouldn't open letters that are not addressed to you, they should be returned to sender.

Sorry about all the questions

Helena

One wonders how a letter can be returned to sender without opening it if the envelope does not have a return address. Many letters, including those from a DCA, are not identifiable as to their source by the envelope.

One should be fully aware of the facts before, on behalf of your company, advising a poster that they have illegally opened mail.

When E.ON receive unopened letters marked as 'Return to sender, not known at this address' or similar,do they accept this as fact and make other enquiries to trace the account holder, leaving the person returning their correspondence in peace?:rolleyes:

For the purposes of resolving the posters complaint, pointing out that they may have committed a criminal offence by opening a letter, is unnecessary and likely to cause further worry to someone who may well be quite concerned that they are being pursued by a DCA for an account they have no responsibility for.

Now you have received debt collection letters for an address that you have never lived at, are any of these letters addressed to you by name? if not it may just be than E.ON were supplied with an incorrect forwarding address.

So that's ok then? For the past 10 months or more the poster has received no correspondence at their address from E.ON regarding this alleged outstanding account. The first the OP knows about it is from a DCA. So one wonders what efforts E.ON have actually been making to contact the account holder at the OPs' address. Apparently none for the last 10 months at least.

I have no time for people who don't pay their bills and I have no objection to companies chasing people for them. It does seem to me that, energy companies in particular, are too quick to pass on or sell on their 'bad accounts' without bothering to check that the information they are disclosing is accurate.

As the OP states, by default on moving to the property, they became customers of E.ON until they applied to switch. Did not E.ON refuse the switch as the account was unpaid and ask the OP for payment?

At this point it would have become apparent that the OP was not the person responsible for the unpaid account, the DCA could have been supplied with up to date information and the present situation would not have arisen.

I would have thought all the E.ON rep needed to do was ask for the OPs' account details and other relevant information in order that corrections could be made to E.ONs records and the DCA informed by E.ON that the account holder they were chasing was no longer at the address to which they were sending their demands for payment. Job done.

Of course this would have required some input and initiative from a human being. Energy companies seem averse to this type of customer service, preferring instead the much more reliable and efficient automated computer systems.

Premier_2

DirectDebacle wrote: »

...
One wonders how a letter can be returned to sender without opening it if the envelope does not have a return address. Many letters, including those from a DCA, are not identifiable as to their source by the envelope...

Simply mark envelope "Not known at this address" and put in post box.
Royal mail will return to address shown for returns (if there is one - most E.on letters do) otherwise foward to their security department to try and establish sender.
Admittedly, if this happens, the letter will be opened, but RM are permitted to do this.

This is the MSE way to return letters - otherwise you have to pay the return postage.

DirectDebacle

Premier wrote: »

Simply mark envelope "Not known at this address" and put in post box.
Royal mail will return to address shown for returns (if there is one - most E.on letters do) otherwise foward to their security department to try and establish sender.
Admittedly, if this happens, the letter will be opened, but RM are permitted to do this.

This is the MSE way to return letters - otherwise you have to pay the return postage.

I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.