Spark Energy Help

NELBHOY

Hi
We returned from Living in Australia nearly 3 years ago. Upon moving into our original house it was discovered that Spark energy had hijacked our gas and electricity supply without our consent. After a whole lot of phone calls they admitted it was their mistake and withdrew the bills they had sent out. All the time we were with Scottish Gas and paying a Direct Debit.
Fast forward 2 years and they are at it again. We received a bill for over a 1000GBP a few months ago which we ignored.
We've now received a letter from a Debt Collection Agency stating the usual crap. Extremely reluctantly I phoned Spark up again to be told its not their fault and that they tried to contact Scottish Gas on numerous occasions. The problem they say is Scottish Gas only took back the Electricity Account, not the Gas, and as it was coming up to the 2 year threshold we were liable for the money. I contacted Scottish Gas who could not confirm they had been in contact with Spark but could confirm that they were indeed the supplier for both Gas and Electricity and that we were actually in the black on both accounts. A mooted return call from Spark hasn't materialised. Meanwhile we have a letter from a debt collector threatening all sorts of stuff due to a supplier we didn't even want or heard of up to a few years ago! How can Spark get off with this?

dogshome

Hmmm
Although Spark are slippery, ie Getting their customers by bribing Letting Agents who handle rented properties, as you own this house the chances are Spark got involved by an 'Erroneous Transfer' - This where someone else Switches supplier and along the process the info. gets scrambled and the wrong house is Switched.
The rule is with ER's is that a wrongly switched customer should suffer no financial dis-advantage

So far as who your Gas supplier is, you can check this for yourself by phoning the National Data Base for gas meters on 0870 608 1524 - BE AWARE THIS IS A PREMIUM RATE No.

The Nat. Data Base is king - who they say your supplier is gospel and no arguements.

If they say it's Spark it gets interesting to say the least:
You have to pay Spark, but SP will have to return all the cash you have paid to them
However Spark who have failed to bill you for 2 years, under the Back-Billing agreement, can only bill you for gas consumed in the last 12 months.

I suggest you check the data base and report back on this site

NELBHOY

Thanks for the reply. Phoned the number and they said there is no data as to who the supplier is.

dogshome

The Data base did say they had a record of your Meter No and *MPR No. being registered to your address, but no supplier was recorded ?
*Meter Point Reference No. - It will be printed on your bills from Scot Gas.

If they say they have these, but no supplier registered, then either Spark or Scot Gas or both, have failed in their prime duty to register themselves with the data base.

Scot Gas have said that they are the registered supplier, and to do so should have contacted the same source that you did, so either they they just didn't bother to check, or Xsoserve who run the data base mis-informed you.

Advice is to phone again, explaining why you urgently need the information

NELBHOY

They didnt even ask for my meter number. Just postcode and house number

dogshome

The address is usually enough, but what really pins it down is the Meter Point Reference No, - MPRN

This will be printed on your Scot Gas Bills, usually below the details of the gas charges

NELBHOY

Been on to Scottish Gas and it turns out Spark are our supplier! Nightmare. Scottish Gas said they contacted Spark October 2015 to return the supply back to Scottish Gas but it never happened. Spark say they tried 3 times to contact SCOTTISH POWER to return the supply and there was no response. So it looks like Spark took over our supply from Scottish Gas through an erroneous transfer, tried to return it to the wrong company and then left it nearly 2 years before telling us. Meanwhile Scottish Gas tried once to take back the supply and then made no further attempt to contact Spark or to let us know. All the time Scottish Gas continued to take a monthly Direct Debit off of us.
Contacted the Citizens Advice with all the details. They said they will contact both parties and try to sort the mess out. Unbelievable considering it was a company that we had never heard of that initiated this.

dogshome

Talk about incompetance - You really couldn't make it up.

With an erroneous transfer, the rule is that the affected customer should be returned to the original supplier and incur no financial disadvantage.

The entirely accidental result of this shambles, is that your original supplier has been billing you as though you never left them and you have paid those bills, which is exactly the result that would have happened if the Erroneous Transfer had been properly sorted out in the first place.

WRITE to Spark, (or have the CAB do it ), pointing out that they were responsible for the ER in the first place, and that it was their error in contacting Scot Power and not Scot Gas to correct the ER, that has caused a 2 year delay in correcting the original mistake, and that you require a written apology withdrawing all claims for gas supply to your home.