Argh Powergen

magyar

ellielou wrote:

They did cancel my direct debit without anything from me or my bank - I have a letter from them infoming me they had cancelled my DD.

I made a few part payments to my account when I was receiving bills, but then they stopped & calls to Powergen resulted in me being told I was not a customer of thier's & they couldn't trace me.

Payments were stopped because I couldn't be sure the money was hitting my account as I had no bills and they couldn't find my records when I called them.

I feel I did everything I felt I could to reconcille this. However, the meantime, my partner left, I had a small child to look after and money is bloody tight - I just want to get this sorted & thought someone on here may be able to offer a little more advice.

I'm sure I speak for everyone in saying I sympathise with your situation; if money's tight then it's never easy.

So if I understand it, the sequence is
(1) You were paying by direct debit
(2) They cancelled your direct debit, but carried on sending you (quarterly?) bills, which you made part payments towards
(3) The bills stopped and, because they claimed they had no record of you, you didn't want to make any more payments to that account in case it didn't reach the right account.
(4) This has now 'caught up' and you are in arrears of ~£1700 after about two years.

Working backwards, £1700 seems "about right" for two years depending on the size of your house and usage but £70 a month is historically quite accurate for fuel bills.

Since they didn't bill you for two years, it's entirely reasonable for you to pay that back over two years. So in fact if they're offering you a repayment plan of £163/month then actually that's quite fair given that fuel prices are now probably closer to £80 a month on average.

You're going to have to pay more than £70 a month otherwise your debit balance will never go down, so it's down to what you can afford. I'm sure if you go to Powergen and offer them somewhere in the middle, then they'll listen.

I'm afraid you really don't have any claim against them for not billing you; you were ultimately using the fuel and have to pay for it.

Cardew

ellielou wrote:

They did cancel my direct debit without anything from me or my bank - I have a letter from them infoming me they had cancelled my DD.

I made a few part payments to my account when I was receiving bills, but then they stopped & calls to Powergen resulted in me being told I was not a customer of thier's & they couldn't trace me.

Payments were stopped because I couldn't be sure the money was hitting my account as I had no bills and they couldn't find my records when I called them.

I feel I did everything I felt I could to reconcille this. However, the meantime, my partner left, I had a small child to look after and money is bloody tight - I just want to get this sorted & thought someone on here may be able to offer a little more advice.

Ellielou,
There is a difference between offering sympathy for your domestic situation(which you have raised) and offering advice on the outstanding money you owe.

There are 2 parties to a Direct Debit agreement - in this case Powergen and yourself. Powergen cancelled the DD and informed you by letter; that is perfectly within their rights. However as they much prefer DD payment they would not normally cancel a DD without reason - normally it is because the DD payments are not honoured because of insufficient funds in your account. I note you say the DD payments were made "satisfactorily" until Jan 2003 - if they were 'satisfactory' did you not query why they stopped the DD?

When you got quarterly bills instead, why did you feel it acceptable to only send them part payments? Why not payment in full, was that because you could not afford it?

You do not seem to dispute that you owe Powergen this money and it appears that the advice you seek is how to avoid paying it?

Well the consensus of opinion is that you have no legal, or indeed moral, right to evade payment of this sum and that your offer to Powergen is not reasonable, given that your defaulting on payments is the original cause of problem.

It would appear that you have been in debt to Powergen for 4 years and if you accept their payment plan will be in debt for another 2 years at least.

The financial hardship you are currently experiencing is a separate matter and there are other forums on this site who may be able to offer advice; or perhaps the CAB or Social Services may offer assistance.