Missed payment (Sainsburys Energy to British Gas)

AndreasO

Hi,

We switched gas/electric from Sainsbury's Energy (British Gas) to British Gas last December. We provided Sainsbury's a last metre reading and cancelled the last direct debit. We then received an email final invoice on 26th December which gave us 14 days to pay. Unfortunately with it being Christmas the email was overlooked. We then receive a letter on 14th January from an agency called Westcot saying they are chasing payment on behalf of British Gas. As soon I received the letter I paid the full amount but I was informed by Sainsbury's that the credit agencies would be notified of the missed final payment.

My question is there any hope in contesting this on the basis we only received one email (I would have thought we would have received more than just one email as an opportunity to pay)? Can we contest in any other way? They have our telephone numbers...one phone call and we would have paid immediately.

We have 'excellent' credit ratings and have never missed any payments for anything. We are about to go through a first time buyers mortgage application after having an offer accepted and we are very concerned this is going to hinder our chances.

Any advice would be much appreciated as we're pretty gutted about this

Thanks in advance.

A

Candyapple

Why did you cancel your DD before the final bill?

As you received an e-mail invoice and had 14 days to pay, I don't really think you have a leg to stand on.

You could however contact Sainsbury's again and ask them as a gesture of goodwill if they would remove the late payment but they would be well within their rights to refuse.

AndreasO

Thanks for your reply. We cancelled the final DD because in the past we had an £800 estimated final bill come out of our account. This took 4 months to dispute and naturally we were conscious of this happening again.

Mummyto4kids

To be honest if you had the email giving you 14 days to pay it and it was for a final bill I am not shocked they sent it to a debt agency. Id personally have left the DD running, and if there was an issue with the final payment then recalled it via the bank.


I suspect you'll get a standard response telling you they have to report accurately to the CRA's - you could add a notice to your credit report stating why it was late perhaps?

GingerBob_3

Mummyto4kids wrote: »

To be honest if you had the email giving you 14 days to pay it and it was for a final bill I am not shocked they sent it to a debt agency. Id personally have left the DD running, and if there was an issue with the final payment then recalled it via the bank.


I suspect you'll get a standard response telling you they have to report accurately to the CRA's - you could add a notice to your credit report stating why it was late perhaps?

They can, and sometimes do, remove these blacklisting markers from the CRA files. There are a couple of other current threads discussing this matter. These companies are under no obligation to maintain the CRA files with the so-called "truth", which in this case is a trivial oversight that from time to time we are all guilty of - but of course it doesn't show up as such on the files. To me this is yet another example demonstrating all too well the diseased nature of CRA reporting. Are you a "bad payer"? No, of course not. But these markers suggest that you are. Call that "the truth"? It's closer to a lie!


Call the offending energy company and see if they'll remove the makers. It's worth a try.

andyfromotley

Companies do have discretion to remove them, during a product switch with Nationwide there was a mix up with my DD resulting in a missed payment. (partly my fault tbh) However i complained and it was removed, but i had to stand on and make it clear that i would escalate this matter to the regulating authoritites, despite being told time and again that the COULD NOT remove it. Eventually they relented and agreed.

You are in a similar position, be persistent and polite. If they dont remove it i would consider adding a notice. It is worth noting that these markers do not carry anywhere near the same weight as say a default and may well not affect your ability too get credit if you are unabe to get it removed.