npower/pastduecredit chasing me for a debt that isn't mine

nids

npower have decided that I owe them £170.22, which I don't.

I'm a landlord of a flat and they claim the charges are for the 'gap' between two tenancies.

Except it's not because when I queried npower about it about 3-4 months ago, they gave me the dates for which these charges stood for and I explained to them that the dates were mainly during the term of the current tenancy. I told them they need to chase down my tenant, and I confirmed the tenant's name to them. I wasn't asked for any evidence of the new tenancy or the new tenancy dates.

When I asked for the breakdown of the charges by email, the lady told me she couldn't email me and so she'd have to send it by post - which, of course, never arrived.

I assumed the matter was sorted, but yesterday I received a letter in my name, from pastduecredit (one of these shady 'debt recovery' companies) offering me a 'reduced settlement' of £136. How generous.

I fear that now if I take it up with npower they won't consider talking to me, especially now that they've sold on my debt to pastduecredit and have clearly washed their hands of it. pastduecredit almost definitely won't entertain any sort of dialogue - they've bought this debt and will want to extract every penny they can out of me.

Any thoughts on this? Help, please!

matelodave

Your dispute is with nPower not pastduecredit. You should write to nPower (recorded delivery), not phone or e-mail headed "complaint" telling them what the problem is and enclosing copies of any relevant documents (ie tenanacy agreements etc). Once you've registerd the complaint, they must tell the credit agency to stop chasing you and try to sort it out. You should also tell the credit agency (again by recorded delivery letter) that you are in dispute with nPower and it will be referred to the ombudsman in eight weeks if it's not resolved.
Hopefully that should get the agency off your back and nPower sorting it out.
If nPower don't get it sorted in 8 weeks or send you a "deadlock letter" telling you why in can't be resolved you can then refer it to the ombudsman.

nids

Thank you very much for the reply.

I phone pastduecredit and they confirmed that the case has been closed at their end, and confirmed they don't need the info in writing.

In the process of writing a letter to npower now - I'm expecting to get little more out of them than if I just shout at a brick wall, but here goes!