Complaint - Erroneous Transfer

yoshiyella

Also to confirm that Scottish Power had given us a FINAL bill for electricity and gas!

Then, when OVO advised that SP were trying to take back the gas (not the electricity) I called them and they had NO records of that transfer. Went back to OVO who said they would contact SP directly - I was then told by OVO it was definitely with them and I received gas and electric bills the whole of this year from them. No communications from SP whatsoever. It was only until last week have OVO said that the gas is with SP and they had done an erroneous transfer and it was back with them as of December.

yoshiyella

Just checked my communications with SP and the final bill was finally given to me in April 2015 for the period from 22/08/14 to 29/09/14 and have email confirmation from their complaints department confirming this and payment received for this in full.

Cardew

You DID have a contract with SP.(see post#9) As explained earlier, you had a legally binding 'deemed contract' with SP as soon as you moved in.

but for some reason our old provider at our previous address tried to take over and succeeded (they have admitted their fault)

The reason is clearly your initial contact with FU as soon as you moved in and they instigated switching procedure from SP to themselves. They may well now admit that it was an error in not cancelling the switch, but the call centre operator either misunderstood or wilfully processed the switch(and thus got their bonus!)

Have you got the admission from FU that they were at fault in writing?

Provided you made your instructions to OVO perfectly clear that you wanted both gas and electricity transferred from SP(and not FU) to OVO then it is up to OVO to sort out matters.

Your problem is that on the 'Deemed Contract' with SP you will have been placed(correctly) on their most expensive Standard tariff. If OVO accept that it is their fault, then they should at least compensate you for the difference in the two tariff prices.

However they might well say that the confusion caused by your initial approach to FU, contributed to the mix-up.

Cardew

yoshiyella wrote: »

Just checked my communications with SP and the final bill was finally given to me in April 2015 for the period from 22/08/14 to 29/09/14 and have email confirmation from their complaints department confirming this and payment received for this in full.

That would have been for the period prior to SP handing the account to FU(not OVO). See:

but for some reason our old provider(FU) at our previous address tried to take over and succeeded (they have admitted their fault)

As you have stated the account was passed back from FU to SP as per your instruction.(i.e. you didn't want FU to have the account)

Once the account was back with SP, OVO would have instigated the switching procedure, which would take several weeks.

System

Thinking about this overnight, you need to ask Ovo whether there was an actual transfer to them - or they only thought that there was. I say this as I transferred my gas and electricity supply to Ovo in June. In late Jul, I queried an electricity bill only to be told that on checking my account they noticed that my gas transfer had not gone through. My situation is not the same as yours but it is worth asking.

yoshiyella

Just an update:

Spoke to Scottish Power who have said it did go back to them erronously in January but their systems did not re-activate my account that had closed so no-one was aware.

They are looking into this and have indicated that I may not have to pay for the usage during this period.

Not sure about if that would be correct or not or it's a legal thing not being able to charge me?

System

None of this adds up. If Ovo are telling you that they had the supply and SP erroneously took it back then, under The Erroneous Transfer Charter, Ovo is responsible for sorting this mess out. It is required to put you back into the position that you should have been had the erroneous transfer not taken place. You would pay Ovo for the energy consumed at the agreed tariff price: Ovo will sort out any inter-company financial matters with SP. There is no code to write-off any bills but you may have a claim for a small amount of compensation for the inconvenience caused.

All that said, I am still not sure that I fully understand the timeline here.