Iresa cost me loads - can I sue?

BoojieBen

Hi all,

After today receiving a bill from Spark Energy (who I shouldn't even have an account with) for over £700 today I'm at my wits end with the mistakes from Iresa. Here's the story...

On the 9th of March we moved into a new home. Job 1 was to find a cheap energy supplier and I was aware that the last owner was charged ridiculous amounts by Spark Energy. I couldn't afford to be in the same situation. Iresa was by far the cheapest based on usage so I applied. Direct debit of £70 per month was signed off by myself.
30th March I am made aware that Iresa incorrectly took over my neighbours utilities. Multiple phone calls later they said they will switch my utilities over from Spark. At this point I think everything will be fine.
30th May - I realise nothing has been done so I submitted a complaint requesting that they take over the utilities ASAP and to pay the large difference between what I've been charged by Spark and what I should have paid to Iresa.
7th June - I receive a notification that Iresa have taken over my Gas supply. I reply to my complaint asking why I've had no response.
8th June - I receive a notification that Iresa can't take over my Electricity supply as I owe Spark too much money. Spoke to Spark who told me my bill is over £300. They understood the situation and to help me out they created a new account for me and transfered the old balance over. There was a few days window where my new account would have a 0 balance so a supplier transfer would go through. I told Iresa the same day and they said they would reattempt the transfer. (They never did)
16th July - Chased for another update. Was told it was passed to the relevant department.
23rd July - Chased again. No response.
25th July - 8 weeks from original complaint I submitted a complaint to the Ombudsman.
27th July - Receive a notification the Iresa is to cease trading

Throughout all this Iresa have been charging me my full direct debit mount even though they've been supplying anything for barely any of it. Today I received a notification that I owe Spark £725 and my debt is about to go to a collection agency.
I can't afford this, it's going to cripple me and I've never had a collection agency after me, I really don't want it to affect my clean credit rating.

What are my options? I now want Iresa to refund my what they owe me and foot the complete bill from Spark. How likely is it that the Ombudsman will be able to do this for me? If it's unlikely then I'd really like some legal advise on whether I can take them to court.

I look forward to any responses.
Ben.

Wilt

As you noted in your post, Iresa have ceased trading so it's unlikely you'll get any money of out them - they have none left!

Best bet is to wait and see who takes over from Iresa and what they say. If you have an active account open then they might at least have the money you have paid to Iresa via direct debit already - they won't be able to help out with the Spark bill, though.

Quentin

Don't spend money on legal advice over this - it's pointless taking a bust company to court!

trickytree1963

Claim back all the IRESA DD's through DD guarantee if they've never supplied you?

BoojieBen

It!!!8217;s the £725 which bothers me most, I can!!!8217;t pay it and I can!!!8217;t switch until it!!!8217;s paid

BoojieBen

No idea why my apostrophes are formatted like that!

D_M_E

Have you had a detailed itemised bill from Spark which shows how the £700 was arrived at?

Given that you say the wrong meter was used to attempt a switch, have you checked the bill relates to your actual meter - do the serial numbers on the bill and meter match?

BoojieBen

Yes I had to do a burns test to verify

ValiantSon

How has your bill for Spark risen to £725? Weren't you paying them anything during this period?

According to your timeline, on 8th June you owed Spark around £300, but only seven weeks later this has risen to £725! That's an astronomical amount of electricity you appear to have used.

Something isn't right about all of this. Can you explain who you were paying, for each month, how much, what your standing charge and unit prices are (both tariffs) and what your monthly readings were?

There is no point trying to take legal action against IRESA because they have ceased trading. If you have paid money to IRESA then your credit balance is protected, but this will be used by the company that takes over your gas supply to pay for your energy usage moving forwards. If it is a significant sum, then you can request for it to be refunded.

oldwiring

BoojieBen wrote: »

No idea why my apostrophes are formatted like that!

The explanation from another forum:

the site is converting the ' to the ascii code
http://ee.hawaii.edu/~tep/EE160/Book/chap4/subsection2.1.1.1.html

an apostrophe is often to terminate strings in code, so will be converted to stop that from happening.
what normally happens though is that the page displaying the result should reconvert that ascii back to what it should be,

BoojieBen

I have uploaded a bill from each company as well as screenshot of Iresa's estimation on my gas usage

You can find them in my OneDrive here:
htt ps://1drv.ms/f/s!AgrfM51pNBu-gR6layjZsZJ8b3Sq

I guess the £300 bill was just an estimation and it's actually the gas which has cost me a lot of money. That is odd to me as as soon as I moved in this house I had a new energy efficient boiler installed, all new radiators and thermostats put on each radiator so only the rooms we were using at the time were heated.
Something is very wrong here.....