Being sued for someone else's gas!

Garret

I would write to him at home because it would get directly to him whereas if you write to anyone very senior in a PLC it will have to get through several underlings before he read it and would probably take a long time to get through if it even did. The court hearing is Monday so it seems a reasonable action to me

A polite letter is not harassment. Threatening court action for gas that isn't mine is harassment. So is misleading a court in order to get a warrant. So is forced entry and cutting off a gas supply of an innocent third party. And, if they were to fit a prepayment meter, given that my neighbours are paying their gas bills to their original company, it would be extortion.

Garret

Update!

I finally got through to someone that is able to do something and has a brain. He said he would look into it and get back to me in the morning and if there was anything to my case at all he would cancel the hearing set for Monday.

Update to the update!
He has already called me back and has said that he needs to look into it properly but from what he has seen so far has cancelled the Monday hearing and will be looking into it further. He said he'll confirm by email. I haven't received it yet, but he sounds so much more reasonable compared to the person I was dealing with before. I have a huge feeling of relief.

Swash

Is this someone at the court?

Garret

No, someone fairly senior at Utility Warehouse.

jfdi

Check with the court ( late tomorrow, first thing Monday? ) that the case has been cancelled.........

Garret

I finally got an email confirming they were postponing action so at least Monday (supposed) to be off:

"there will be no warrant action taking place on 09/11/2015, all legal debt action has been postponed"

Whilst the bloke I spoke to started off seeming helpful by the end I had a bad feeling about his motives.

Go to the court Monday? (He says with heavy heart, guessing what the reply will be.)

undaunted

I agree with other posters - if you're certain that you are in the right just restate the facts and tell them to go ahead & take it to the Courts if that's what they want to do. You have nothing to fear from them doing so.


Check with the Court not the company that this hearing has been cancelled. If it has not you would be wise to attend regardless of what you have been told by the company. If a warrant is sought & you haven't attended it will probably be granted on the nod through & they will be entitled to force entry to your home to fit a pre payment meter.

Personally if writing to a Director I would do so at a business address and not their home to avoid any possible allegations of impropriety on your part.

Garret

I don't want it to go to court because I've sent it to the Ombudsman so a court is only going to ask for the outcome of the Ombudsman's decision anyway and I certainly don't need threats of court action or having forced entry/gas cut off/meter replaced etc etc while the Ombudsman is sorting it out.

I asked them to hold off while the Ombudsman looks into it. The guy said they hadn't heard from the Ombudsman yet (it is a slowish process) so they were going ahead with their own investigation but they would suspend action until January.

A very suspicious part is that I registered my complaint with UW months ago but the guy said it was all very odd because my complaint only appeared to have registered with UW yesterday!

I can only assume this was an attempt by an UW member of staff to avoid the Ombudsman on the grounds that they were still investigating themselves and the statutory 8 weeks hadn't gone by.

So I suppose it is best if I go to court on Monday. After all, I cancelled the transfer of my gas and electricity to UW in good time but they went ahead and took it over anyway so it is quite possible that the hearing is listed and UW will just say "Oops, sorry" again.

As it is an application for a warrant not a full court case it doesn't get listed publicly in advance so I won't be able to tell if I'm on the list of warrant applications until I get there on Monday.

They are just sods with no idea of customer service at all.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Have you contacted the court yet? They have listings of all forthcoming matters - they will be able to tell you over the phone.

Garret

Yes, I phoned them and they couldn't / wouldn't tell me. That's how I found out the below:

Garret wrote: »

As it is an application for a warrant not a full court case it doesn't get listed publicly in advance so I won't be able to tell if I'm on the list of warrant applications until I get there on Monday.