Lowell and E.ON both claiming debt owed?

keekstuff

This is a curious case.

• 6 months ago, I received a letter from Lowell Portfolio Ltd along with an attached letter from EON stating that EON had sold my account, along with an outstanding balance. Lowell now "owns" the debt of ~£170.
• I didn't feel safe contacting Lowell, so I contacted E.ON, disputing the debt, which seems to originate from over 4 years ago, covering a period after we had sold the property.
• Long story short with E.ON, it took 5 months of me proactively engaging E.ON with evidence and communications to get the bill recalculated. It wasn't until I raised a complaint, did someone actually get in touch with me and confirm actual reads and balance.
• Still not happy with the way E.ON handled it as they think it should be ~£160 (First, they gave me actual reads for up to the billing date. Then they corrected it and said the readings were from a month before, at the time when I moved out -- fishy!).
• Now, from what I understand from the E.ON rep, because I raised a complaint, this re-opened my account and the money is owed to them and Lowell are just a debt collection agency working on their behalf.
• Meanwhile, Lowell has sent multiple letters, including more recent ones, knocking off 30% and now 50%... much less than what E.ON are asking for.

I lost confidence in getting a true reflection from E.ON and would rather the problem go away by paying the reduced amount to Lowell, whom, surprisingly, I had far less stress with... so far. The fact that E.ON want the money concerns me. I have hard copy letters of them selling the account, but they haven't confirmed understanding of this over the phone.

Do I owe E.ON or Lowell? Am I missing something?

sourcrates

keekstuff wrote: »

• Now, from what I understand from the E.ON rep, because I raised a complaint, this re-opened my account and the money is owed to them and Lowell are just a debt collection agency working on their behalf.
• Meanwhile, Lowell has sent multiple letters, including more recent ones, knocking off 30% and now 50%... much less than what E.ON are asking for.

Do I owe E.ON or Lowell? Am I missing something?

Hi,


Lowell are a specialist debt purchasing company, they only buy debts, they have there own "in house" management company called Lowell Portfolio one, they do not manage debts for clients, as some collectors do.


If Eon sold the debt to Lowell, then Lowell own the account now, call handlers at Eon are not always up to speed on this process.


My suggestion would be to write to Lowell and Eon, explain it as you have to us, tell them to sort out this mess between them, and whoever has legal entitlement to collect this debt, send you a discounted bill