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Credit default on amount I do not owe
9 replies
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mk866
Forumite 3 posts
My original supplier ExtraEnergy went into administration. Therefore, my account was automatically transferred to ScottishPower. I heard lots of bad stuff about them so I moved to a different energy company. Scottish power produced a final bill for me for £297 which is twice as much as I pay also the final estimated metre reading is way off. I contacted them to get the final bill fixed. I provided new metre reading and they agreed to look into it. However, I never got any response from them. I contacted them several times, but every time they just take the new metre reading and told me to wait. I started to receive all sorts of threat emails and letters about collection agency and credit default on the wrong amount. I was told by them that not to worry about emails because they will put a hold on it until my bill issue is solved. However, the threat email continues and until 20 Dec, I got an email saying that they have registered a credit default under my name. This is so unfair! I had an excellent credit score before this. It is ruined because I never got the correct bill. Is there still hope to get the default removed? Any help would be much appreciated.
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Replies
Don’t worry about emails - these are more than likely automatic and driven by the current status of the account.
Send a written formal complaint letter via registered post, putting down your side of the issue. Include the fact that you are happy to pay a correct final amount and that any part of redress on their side should include the removal of default markers from your credit files.
Once they complete their investigations they will issue a final resolution. Depending on what the outcome is, you will know more at that stage what the next steps will be - either escalation to the Ombudsman or ICO.
Let us know how you get on.
One problem that I can see is that by using an estimated reading for the final bill a situation has now been created where it can never be proven one way or the other what the actual reading was on the date that they ceased to be your supplier. What reading did the new supplier use though to take over the supply?
Your post seems to indicate that you gave an estimated meter reading at the end of your time with Scottish Power, and thus they are basing their final bill on this estimated meter reading.
Can you confirm if you did this? If so, why did you give them an estimated meter reading and not the final meter reading?
If you've done this, you've opened yourself up to a world of trickiness, because I can't see you have any way of proving that the estimated meter reading was incorrect - presumably you've used electricity since then and so the meter reading will today be different to what it was back then.
As far as I'm aware, no supplier will let the customer submit an estimated reading - there simply isn't a facility to do it. They are not interested in the customer guessing how much energy they have used, because the customer has access to the actual reading.
As a rule, if an estimated reading is used, it will have been estimated by the supplier based on your usage history.
I did not provide a meter reading in time for the new supplier. Therefore, Scottish power used an estimated meter reading on the final bill. By the time I got the final bill from Scottish Power and realised that the estimated meter reading they used is way out of the norm. I contacted them with a current meter reading which is two months after the switch date to the new supplier. Scottish Power told me that they can adjust their estimated meter reading for the final bill based on my current meter reading at the time. I guess they can use pro rata to calculate a more accurate estimate. However, the thing is they never gave me the the update final bill!
Thank you for your suggestion. I have sent them an email as with the complaint and demand as well as a formal letter. I will update once I get any response.
If that is wrong, speak to them to get it corrected. They should then pass that back to Scottish Power. Scottish Power should use the reading the new company give them, regardless of anything you tell Scottish Power.
When you change suppliers, the new supplier is supposed to handle all aspects of the transfer. You give the new supplier the meter readings and they pass it to the old supplier. While the old supplier may accept closing readings from the customer, they can't use them for the final bill, they have to use the ones passed to them from the new supplier. That way, every unit is paid for and nothing is paid for twice.
If the new supplier takes too long, the old supplier has an obligation under their license to raise a 'Final' bill within 6 weeks of the end of supply. So sometimes they have to send an estimated bill, and then send a correction (either a refund or demanding more) when the figures finally come through.
Here's where the process often throws a lot of people. Before the readings can be used by either company, they are 'validated' by a faceless industry third party who compares them to historic consumption at that address. Sometimes they just wave them through as-is, but they will often tweak them a little for no discernible reason. It's not unusual for the 'tweaked' figures to appear on final (and first) bills as 'estimated' but it's neither of the suppliers that's doing the estimating. You can raise a dispute, but only if there is a significant difference to the 'actual' reading. In reality it doesn't usually add up to much anyway because adding units to one suppliers bill also removes it from the other.