Gas bill - debt collectors ?

FED_UP_AND_HACKED_OFF

Hello good people,

Wondering if anyone can help? I no longer live in UK but moved to France as I wanted a less stressful life. However, I just got a text on my 'phone to say that I owe a gas bill of almost £900.
Less stress :rotfl:
I called the company out of curiosity. The house I lived was repossessed and I was told the bill is dated 10 days prior to my leaving and a year afterwards.I could not have possibly run up a debt if I no longer lived there.
The debt collectors have said that I have not informed the gas company I had left, so the debt belongs to me. To be totally honest, I don't know if I did or not -it was three years ago.
Questions

• Is this true?
• If I go to live in England again they will enforce it, can they?
• As the building society owned the house and sold it within a few months, would the new occupiers not have been liable to inform the gas company that they owned the house?
• Or even the building society?
• What if the new owners had done some work on the house and fractured a gas pipe and caused an explosion - would I be liable then?
• Were the new owners fraudulently using a supply that was not theirs?

I know you will say forget it - why worry?- but it seems that it is completely unfair (and easy) to say it is my debt when I had no access to it and didn't use it.
I was told I could pay it off today (£600) to 'close the file' but it seems unfair.
Just to note - I lost my house owing to a bad partner who run up debts and run off.

Help needed please...... Manythanks

PNPSUKNET

what a shame,

dogshome

Hi Fed up and hacked off - Sorry to read of your troubles. The bottom line is that there was a Utilities debt on your old house, and as the supplier failed to collect it they have 'Sold' the debt to a Debt Collection Agency - probably for 15pence in the £.
This agency having spent out the money, will not just forget it and go away and will just keep on contacting you

With the re-possession there will be a mountain of paperwork showing when you had to give up the house, and if as you say the D/Agency has verbally informed you that the majority of the bill is for a period after you left, most of the bill is not yours - The problem is proving this to the Agency to get them off your back.
Do not give the Agency your address However if you have a mate in the UK who is willing to recieve mail addressed to you on a 'Care of' basis, write to the agency asking for a detailed hard copy of the bill, then armed with this you can write to the Utility, (again on a Care Of basis), enclosing copies of the re-possesion paperwork to show that the you are not responsible for the period that has been billed, and that you demand that they instruct the agency to cease contacting you.

lemontart

just out of interest when you left the house did you give them final readings and tell them you were leaving?

spiro

You need to write to the supplier giving them details of the date you moved out of the property and the mortgage lender that reprocessed the house. They should then issue you with a bill until you moved out (did you read the meters?) and one to the lender for the rest of the period.

FED_UP_AND_HACKED_OFF

Many thanks to all replies here, except to PNPSUKNET, who posted a sarcasrtic reply - not helpful. It must be lovely to live in Utopia and never to have had a problem and mountains of cash to fund your lifestyle .....

However, back to the real world.....

I cannot remember if I did take a reading, but I understand after speaking to a friend, they can calculate an estimated bill for the ten days we were there based on previous bills. I will contact gas supplier today and explain the situation. I did explain to the debt collectors that all the information regarding the repossession and and subsequent resale was on the land registry deeds and anyone can access them in cluding their 'tracing team'
Many thanks

FED_UP_AND_HACKED_OFF

Hi Everyone again,
I seem to be answering my own postings here! Sorry.
Just to let you know, and for anyone else finds that they have been wrongly charged (moneywise) and hounded by debt collectors.....
I just called the gas supplier, told them the situation and provided the dates of repossession etc. and low and behold, the debt is not mine for the dates insisted upon by the debt collectors.:)
My bill was only for the few days I lived there until it was repossessed. What I thought.
The bill is to be calculated on previous usage.
A fair bit more than the £600 'requested' by the debt collectors to 'close the file' and a lot less than the amount, £900, they 'insisted' I owe.

So to conclude ---- to coin a phrase ---- I took the bull by the horns --- and didn't pay it -AS THE DEBT ---- WASN'T MINE ......:D

bengal-stripe

FED_UP_AND_HACKED_OFF wrote: »

I just called the gas supplier, told them the situation and provided the dates of repossession etc. and low and behold, the debt is not mine for the dates insisted upon by the debt collectors.:)

Now that's a very efficient gas supplier :T.

Within a few minutes of a phone call, they can check on that old debt and can verify the dates you submitted. Why did you post yesterday, if it all could get sorted out with one short phone call?

Me thinks, it all runs a bit too smoothly.

FED_UP_AND_HACKED_OFF

bengal-stripe wrote: »

Now that's a very efficient gas supplier :T.

Within a few minutes of a phone call, they can check on that old debt and can verify the dates you submitted. Why did you post yesterday, if it all could get sorted out with one short phone call?

Me thinks, it all runs a bit too smoothly.

If you had read the first post I made - it clearly stated I received a text from a DEBT COLLECTION AGENCY.
The only reason I called the gas company this morning was the debt collectors were not listening... that is why!!!
And if I knew that the gas company had sold the debt to debt collectors and they were going to contact me THREE YEARS LATER - then I would be doing the lottery - I am not clairvoyant ...

If you think it 'runs too smoothly' then that is what can happen when you have PROOF that you don't owe the money !!

Sorry you feel I have wasted your time bengal stripe - not really my fault......

bengal-stripe

If a company sells a debt, it’s no longer on their customer service computers, definitely not some three years later.
They would have to do manual digging to find the facts of your particular case, equally they would want to see your evidence.

A review and a definite decision is likely to take weeks.

FED_UP_AND_HACKED_OFF wrote: »

So to conclude ---- to coin a phrase ---- I took the bull by the horns --- and didn't pay it -AS THE DEBT ---- WASN'T MINE ......:D

FED_UP_AND_HACKED_OFF wrote: »

then that is what can happen when you have PROOF that you don't owe the money !!

Alright, you’re a smooth little miracle worker :A. Enjoy your self-given halo.

davidgmmafan

"If a company sells a debt, it’s no longer on their customer service computers,"

It could be it differs by company.

"definitely not some three years later."

It maybe in an archive of some sort but this can be as simply as going into another billing program.

Anyway OP seems sorted so no need to argue