Spark Energy and BW Legal

CTID_Chris

Hi

In April 2016, my partner and I moved into a new rented property. The letting agent asked if they could set up our electricity and gas supplier, which we refused knowing the extortionate rates they would put us on.

Turns out they ignored us, and set us up with Spark Energy anyway. Rates of 2.5x what I immediately switched to on day of move with SSE.

I have never had any contact with Spark Energy, but they billed us for £107.23. (???)

I have largely ignored them, which I know is stupid. I have been busy -- and suffer from PTSD and general anxiety disorder, it is very easy for me to ignore things that cause any sort of stress...

Fast forward a bit -- BW Legal have sent me a Letter of Claim. This 'debt', plus fees amounting to £189.49 total.

As far as I'm concerned, at no point have I accepted or given consent to the agent to enter into a contact with Spark Energy.

I'm sure I could pay the debt if necessary, but I would prefer to get on top of it.

Should I just be paying it, negotiating, or should I be chasing the letting agent/Spark Energy/BW Legal to fight against any charge?

Thanks

Chris

Former Spark Representative

Hi Chris


I'm sorry to hear about your current situation.


We work with many tenants, letting agents and landlords to provide gas and electricity to their properties. There's normally a clause in the tenant and the landlord contracts which explains how that works.


In your case if you said you weren't interested in coming over to Spark, we shouldn't have been passed your tenancy details, if we weren't already supplying the property or in the process of becoming the supplier.


The only exception would be if we were already supplying your property or in the process of becoming your supplier, in which case you'd have entered a "deemed contract" when you moved in.


You are not tied into a contract with Spark, and you are free to transfer away at any point, as long as there's no overdue debt over a certain amount on your account.


I could help you more if I could see your account, to get a better picture of what's happened, and so that I can find the right solution for your situation. I can also put any action from BW Legal on hold while I'm handling your account.


Please feel free to contact me using the details on my profile. In order to help you, I'll need your full name, your full postal address and your phone number or email address.


I'm sorry for any stress caused by the situation, but I'm happy to help as much as I can, and make sure we put things right.


Kind regards


Jenny
Customer Relations Manager

Raxiel

CTID_Chris wrote: »

Hi

In April 2016, my partner and I moved into a new rented property. The letting agent asked if they could set up our electricity and gas supplier, which we refused knowing the extortionate rates they would put us on.

Turns out they ignored us, and set us up with Spark Energy anyway. Rates of 2.5x what I immediately switched to on day of move with SSE.

I have never had any contact with Spark Energy, but they billed us for £107.23. (???)

I have largely ignored them, which I know is stupid. I have been busy -- and suffer from PTSD and general anxiety disorder, it is very easy for me to ignore things that cause any sort of stress...

Fast forward a bit -- BW Legal have sent me a Letter of Claim. This 'debt', plus fees amounting to £189.49 total.

As far as I'm concerned, at no point have I accepted or given consent to the agent to enter into a contact with Spark Energy.

I'm sure I could pay the debt if necessary, but I would prefer to get on top of it.

Should I just be paying it, negotiating, or should I be chasing the letting agent/Spark Energy/BW Legal to fight against any charge?

Thanks

Chris

Is it a 'Letter of claim' or a 'Letter before claim'? If it's the latter (unlikely) then its a last chance before court notice and needs to be dealt with, if it's the former its just Debt collector bluster.

BW legal, being debt collectors, don't get paid unless you pay (and will ignore anything that doesn't have that result), so don't bother contacting them, you're better off taking Jenny up on her offer to look into it and get Spark to call them off.

That said, while the letting agent offered to set up your account with spark, you'd still have to set up an account with them yourself if they were the deemed supplier, and would have started on their standard variable rate tariff. Unfortunately you are liable for the daily standing charges and usage between moving in and switching (either to another supplier or tariff with the same company).

Did Spark send you a bill with a breakdown for how that figure was achieved? If the switch took a month then £107 while a little high, doesn't seem outrageous for an SVR in April.

As unjust as deemed contracts might seem sometimes, they're still better than having no supply when you move in and having to arrange a switch on (and the inevitable charges that would bring :eek:).

You're not being taken for a mug by paying it.

Former Spark Representative

Thanks Raxiel, that's good advice.


Chris, I'm looking at your account this morning, and I'll be in touch with you as soon as I've looked everything over.


Kind regards


Jenny
Customer Relations Manager

Raxiel wrote: »

Is it a 'Letter of claim' or a 'Letter before claim'? If it's the latter (unlikely) then its a last chance before court notice and needs to be dealt with, if it's the former its just Debt collector bluster.

BW legal, being debt collectors, don't get paid unless you pay (and will ignore anything that doesn't have that result), so don't bother contacting them, you're better off taking Jenny up on her offer to look into it and get Spark to call them off.

That said, while the letting agent offered to set up your account with spark, you'd still have to set up an account with them yourself if they were the deemed supplier, and would have started on their standard variable rate tariff. Unfortunately you are liable for the daily standing charges and usage between moving in and switching (either to another supplier or tariff with the same company).

Did Spark send you a bill with a breakdown for how that figure was achieved? If the switch took a month then £107 while a little high, doesn't seem outrageous for an SVR in April.

As unjust as deemed contracts might seem sometimes, they're still better than having no supply when you move in and having to arrange a switch on (and the inevitable charges that would bring :eek:).

You're not being taken for a mug by paying it.

Cardew

CTID_Chris wrote: »

Hi


As far as I'm concerned, at no point have I accepted or given consent to the agent to enter into a contact with Spark Energy.

As the Spark Energy rep states in post#2, everyone who moves into a property, and uses any gas/electricity has immediately entered a legally binding 'deemed contract' with the existing supplier - in your case Spark Energy.

The only way to avoid this would be for the previous occupant to have the gas/electricity disconnected, and you wait several weeks(and pay a lot of money) for your chosen supplier to re-connect.