Spark Energy Scam

Rtaggs

Hello, I would apprentice any advice to the following issue:

I started receiving texts from 'Spark Energy' at the beginning of June saying that I had a bill due(still undisclosed amount). I was not in the country at the time and having never heard of spark energy or been the energy bill payer I thought this was a scam and chose to ignore the texts. The texts escalated, saying they were over due, that it may effect my credit score and eventually I started receiving calls from a debt collection agency (one month after the first text from spark). The debt collection agency is 'Allied International Credit' and I have not returned any of their calls or voicemails.

At this stage I called the number quoted on the texts 03451300835 (after googling this number it does appear to be spark). I asked the customer service agent if they could help resolve the above issue however they wanted some details for their verification process and since i refused to provide my address they could not proceed. I did however ask how they got my information and she said it was through an estate agent I had dealings with at the end of last year.

I almost rented a property through this estate egent however it fell through because the landlord chose to sell instead of let the property. I have never rented a property with this estate agent however I must have provided some information such as full name, previous address(and proof), reference form and passport scan and bank sort code and acc number (for the deposit refund after the property fell through).

I then contacted the estate agent directly to see if they could resolve the issue. The estate agent does work with Spark however does not have a record on their system of me renting through them. They got in contact with spark to try resolve the issue however they kept asking me for my current address which I refuse to provide (this went in circles for a while until I stopped emailing). I also checked with my current estate agent and my property does not and never has used spark as a provider. I then created a dud email account and emailed spark customer services directly explaining the above and demanding that they stop contacting me however I did not receive a responce from them.

I have email correspondance with the estate agent confirming that I am not renting with them however I do not have evidence that spark got my information through the estate agent as this was done over the phone.

At this stage I'm fairly concerned. I feel harassed, frustrated that I have to spend time dealing with something that I have no responsibility for and concerned for my credit score. My first instinct is to ignore it all because they do not have my current address and cannot send me letters or come to the property but I am not sure how much info the estate agent sent them and if this is sufficient to effect my credit score. I will check my credit rating tomorrow but have never done this before and I assume that its not great as I'm just out of uni and have never had a credit card.

Should I do any of the following?:
- get recorded evidence of breach of my data protection first by recording a call with one of sparks agents and then by asking for confirmation of that in an email.
- send a written to both the estate agents and sparks legal department explaining the above and the further action I will take should I receive further demands for payment or should my credit rating be effected.
- written letter to AIC to stop contacting me.
- include in the letter the compensation I need for the hours wasted trying to resolve this.
- complain about the situation on their various forms of social media.
- write into various media outlets explaining the story (guardian, which mag etc)

Is there anything else I should do or is all of this not worth spending time on?

I'm sorry for the wall of text but its a very strange situation to me. From what I've read online all three of the companies involved have terrible reputations.

Any advice is greatly appreciated

Thanks

WillJay

Hi There.
Did this get resolved? I have just received a demand from moriarty law for £3k relating to a spark energy account and I've never even heard of them before. I'm wondering what happened with your case?
Thanks

dogshome

1st time I've seen Rtaggs post and hope it was sorted, but reading it I felt the refusal to give Spark present address details added to the problem, but I assume there were undisclosed reasons.

Sparks entire business model is slippery and they are very aggresive with what they consider to be debt, but the sooner you contact them demanding full details of this debt the better.

You either owe money to Spark, or you dont.
If you can show that Spark have got wrong, then the problem will go away.
If it transpires that you do owe them, ignoring it will make it much worse