Eon and LCS Debt collection advice

berginis

Hi everyone

Looking for some advice.

In Dec 2008 my wife and I moved into a 2 bedroom flat in a relatively new block of flats. We were told by our letting agent that our providor was Eon so I contacted them via telephone to set up an account. I was told that they weren't the providor and had no record of the property so we checked back with our letting agent who confirmed it was indeed Eon.

I called Eon a second time and was told that due to a mix-up with meters (the meters all ran from the flats down into a central room down in the underground car park.) they weren't sure which meter referred to which flat/plot. They advised they were trying to sort it out and would get back to me.

Three months passed with no contact so I called them again and they said they were still having the same issue and that everybody in the building was in the same boat. At that point I contacted my letting agent who advised that some of their other tenants in the building were having the same issue so they would sort it out for us while they sorted out the others.

We stayed in the flat for 18 months in total and every time we spoke to our letting agent they told us Eon still hadn't got it sorted. On the day we moved out our letting agent sent a letter and email to Eon stating our begin and entry dates and what we believed the meter readings for our plot to be. We moved out in Aug 2010 and rented a house and have since moved and bought our own house.

We heard nothing for years until recently we received a letter from debt collection company LCS which was forwarded onto us by the people who moved into the house we rented. It said they were investigating on behalf of Eon the energy usage at the flat we lived in and quoted dates of Sept 08 (3 months before we moved in) to Sept 10 ( a month after we moved) and that the bill was £2041 plus a £250 recovery administration charge!

We went to the local Advice Shop who contacted Eon for us. Eon are claiming they had no contact from us or our letting agent during that period of time. They want a copy of a phone bill that proves we called them when we moved into the flat but I can't get this as BT only keep your last 15 bills on file. I contacted our letting agent and they gave me copies of the emails they sent Eon on ther day we moved out and we have passed these on to Eon.

Eon refused to indicate how they calculated the initial figure of £2051 which LCS were pursuing and they are now saying they will reduce this pro-rata for the months we weren't the tenants and issue a new bill.

Am I right in thinking this should be covered by the Billing Code? Even if we can't prove we contacted Eon during our tenancy we can prove they were contacted the day our tenancy ended on 8th Aug 2010 and didn't generate any bills or investigate until January 2013. Is this enough?

Advice gratefully recieved please.

berginis

*The email on Aug 8th 2010 should say "entry and leaving dates"

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi berginis

Sounds like there was an issue with a crossed meter at your former flat. If I might explain.

With new builds, developers/builders apply to have meters installed at all the properties on a development. The details, including meter specs, plot numbers, addresses etc are initially registered against a single account in the name of the builder/developer.

Once connected, all usage from the date of the connection to the time responsibility for the property changes is charged to the developer/builder.

This continues until the developer/builder tells us responsibility for the property has changed. Often they do this in batches or at the end of the development.

At this point, they'll pass us details of individual properties, including postal addresses, plot numbers, metering details and the date they passed responsibility to the occupier.

Sometimes, the information we're given is wrong and a common issue is crossed meters. This is where the wrong meter is attached to individual properties.

We've a specialist team who deal with both new connections and crossed meters. They'll investigate to find out what meters are actually recording usage for each property. The meter will then be re-assigned correctly and usage billed accordingly.

Where a number of properties are involved, it can take quite a time to sort out. The bigger the development, the bigger the potential delay.

The Billing Code applies where we're at fault for not billing a property. If this is the case, we'll not send a bill that includes energy used more than 12 months prior to the issue being corrected.

I would send as much information as you can so an informed decision can be made. Emails from the letting agent should certainly help. A copy of the Tenancy Agreement might also be useful in establishing the dates the account should run from and to.

Ask for a breakdown of the charges, too. You're definitely entitled to this.

Hope this is of interest. Let me know if you need any more details as will be happy to help.

Malc

undaunted

Does the account number and the one used earlier match? (Possibly a long shot but I'm just wondering whether any conversations may possibly be noted under another a/c number if they say there were crossed meters, a/c was rebilled etc)

There may be a small fee but you are entitled to ask for a copy of any notes made on your account if you wish to do so. Presumably they must have set an a/c up at some point, would perhaps be interesting / useful to know (in terms of the back billing code) when, particularly if it wasn't set up at the point you can produce emails to them for.