Green Star Energy Outstanding Bill.

S94phh

This may be long and I do apologise. But I need to explain fully.
September 2015, me and my partner moved into our rented house. The energy supplier was Green Star Energy so just for ease, we stuck with them. Although we've never heard of them before.
We set up a fixed monthly direct debit for both gas and electric at £54 a month, which was taken from my bank account every month.

September 2017, our tenancy was up and we moved out to buy our own property.
So as normal protocol, I rang GreenStar to tell them we'd no longer be occupying the property. They asked for meter readings when we moved out which I submitted via my online account. They then decided to tell me that we were in debt by £800.50 - which just to add, they had never mentioned at anytime before then. They told me they had sent letters after our first year to tell me our tarrif was changing and the prices would change.
Well we never received said letter and our payments stayed at £54 the whole time we were there.

As you can imagine I was furious, I did question how much they'd let the balance get before contacting customers, as £800 is alot of money and if it wasn't for me ringing them, I'd of never known!!

Now, a few months down the line. Around April 2018. We received an email and a few phone calls from Credit Style. Debt collectors. Well we got in contact with them, set up payments of £20 a week from May 2018. All was fine and dandy, it was being paid off, no fuss.

Up until March this year, my partner had a new bank card. So the payments to Credit Style stopped. They contacted us to set it up again, which we tried to arrange over the phone but the automated system wasn't working. The man on the phone said he'd ring me back and try again.
Well he never rang back and we didn't hear a thing from them for weeks.
This is the part where most people would've probably left it. But for me and my partner, it plays on our mind too much that we owe money and we wanted it sorted.
I then had a thought that maybe Credit Style haven't contacted again because they've realised we've paid up fully or over paid. My partner checked his bank statements for the period March 2018 to April 2019.
He had made 46 payments of £20 which makes £920.
So that was it, straight onto the phone to Credit Style who fobbed me off and said as all payments have been taken, the account is closed and any problems I'd have to take up with Green Star themselves. Even after I'd explained that were owed money. He still insisted I contact Green Star.
So I did. Now Green Star were adamant we still owed £137 something. Aparently our bill was infact £1057 so we aparently still owe them.

Now I asked where this figure had come from and I asked for a break down.
They told me the 'extra' was from June 2017 - November 2017. Well June, July, August and September 2017 I was still paying £54 a month as we were in the property. October and November 2017 we weren't in the property, therefore that's not our bill.

They asked for proof of tenancy ending September 2017 and METER READINGS FROM 2017!!!!

Now I'm completely lost, how on earth do they expect meter readings from two years ago! I submitted them online before we moved out, so they should have them.

I am adamant they owe us money, but they're reluctant to admit it...

What do I do? :mad:

Matty36

Crikey. Best thing to probably do is explain all this to them in writing clearly marked as a complaint and follow their complaints procedure. If not recified after 8 weeks, you can use the ombudsman. Use resolver.co.uk to help you with your complaint

Also, someone might correct me here, but I'm sure they cannot bill you for something older than 12 months. (Backbilling code) A more experienced member will definitely know though

mac.d

I think Matty36's suggestion is spot on, send them a written complaint. If they had previously billed you and that bill said you owed £800, I think under the back billing rules they can't now turn around and say that was an error and proceed to bill you for a period in 2017.

If you submitted meter readings in September 2017, that should have produced a final bill at some point, and that would have included your readings and the amount you owed. Even if you've moved out of the house, you still have access to your account online and could access your bill from there.

You have caused much of your own problems here by not keeping an eye on your bills, and not supplying meter readings to allow Green Star to bill you correctly, it's probably all been based on estimates up until you gave them a reading when you were moving out. It's not Green Stars fault you never bothered to chase up the fact you'd had no bills, or checked to see if your £54 per month was enough to cover the cost of your energy (that's a low amount that would only cover someone who was a low consumer), which in turn then explains why you were hit with a huge bill at the end.

So complain to them in writing, and take it as a wake up call to keep an eye on your bills and make sure they are not based on estimates in future. Although I hope you have a smart meter now as you appear to be someone who'd benefit from it (but even then you should still check your bills just to make sure they are correct). It's your money, it's your bill, take control of it.

Benight

Matty36 wrote: »

Crikey. Best thing to probably do is explain all this to them in writing clearly marked as a complaint and follow their complaints procedure. If not recified after 8 weeks, you can use the ombudsman. Use resolver.co.uk to help you with your complaint

Also, someone might correct me here, but I'm sure they cannot bill you for something older than 12 months. (Backbilling code) A more experienced member will definitely know though

Backbilling probably is not an issue here.
The supplier seems to indicate they were sending correspondence, but the OP denies receiving them. The OP also doesn't seem to have any bills or statements from that year, but I feel sure the supplier would have produced them too.

The OP needs to contact the supplier, and request copies of the bills/statements that the supplier has produced. They would be dated.

With all that information, hopefully the OP can start making sense of what they actually owe.
Hopefully their bank records will indicate what has been paid.

Once the OP has amassed all that information, if the OP is still adament the supplier owes them money, they will have the evidence to spell all that out to the supplier in a complaint.

S94phh

They had regular meter readings that I always submitted online and they still didn't tell me that I was 'over spending'
It wasn't down to me to check. As far as I was aware it was a fixed rate.. They should've contacted me otherwise.

JJ_Egan

Its a fixed tariff not a fixed usage and cost .
The DD is only an estimate of your probable usage divided by 12 . Use less pay less use more pay more .