Lowell and British Gas - Letter from nowhere

dexterrescue

Hello MSE team,

Apologies firstly if there is guidance to this elsewhere. I have read a number of threads relating to Lowell's but I am yet to find the guidance to "they need to prove it".

I have today received a letter from Lowell claiming I owe them/British Gas £218 from 2011 to 2017. It does not state which property I used the gas at but it does have an account number. I closed my account with BG when I left the rental property and there were no outstanding amounts.

I haven't done anything so far. Loathe to email them as that gives them more ways of contacting me!

Enormous thanks in advance....

Willing2Learn

dexterrescue wrote: »

...I have today received a letter from Lowell claiming I owe them/British Gas £218 from 2011 to 2017. It does not state which property I used the gas at but it does have an account number. I closed my account with BG when I left the rental property and there were no outstanding amounts.

Hi,

Did you provide BG a closing final meter reading, taken on the day that you moved?

Is the account number for the Lowell debt, the same as your account number for the BG account that you closed?

sourcrates

Lowell will have bought this debt, one of many unpaid accounts they acquire every year, if the contact details are correct, and it is the same account number, it would suggest either the debt was not fully settled, or the account was not properly closed at the time.
My response would be a "provit" letter to Lowell, and see what they provide in the form of evidence.

Then take it from there.

Provit letter can be found here :

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2607247/letter-when-you-know-nothing-about-about-the-debt-aka-prove-it-letter

irelavv

dexterrescue wrote: »

I have today received a letter from Lowell claiming I owe them/British Gas £218 from 2011 to 2017. It does not state which property I used the gas at but it does have an account number. I closed my account with BG when I left the rental property and there were no outstanding amounts.

Hi dexter,

I also received a letter, email and phone message from Lowell claiming I owed British Gas money from 2014. My situation is similar because British Gas sold my account to Lowell as well. If you're interested you can have a read from the post here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6091929/a-real-debt-doozy-advice-needed-for-british-gas-and-southern-water

My advice is to try and figure out what exactly the £218 is for and which property does it concern, without involving Lowell (i.e. going through old bills, letters, emails etc.). In the letter they sent me, they also included a copy of British Gas' letter saying they sold the account. Please note, only in BG's letter did it state for which property they demanded payment, no mention of this in Lowell's - just the account number same as yours.

You could probably try and contact BG to ask which account they sold to Lowell. You can do this by quoting Lowell's original account number (written on their letter) because this is the same customer number you would have had for the property at question.

Another thing you could try is to go through your credit reports between 2011-2017. It should show you the payments you made to BG and the status of the account at hand. The account number on your credit file should be the same number that Lowell have included in their letter - so in your credit report you would also see the corresponding address to that account.

If that doesn't help then I guess you could try contacting Lowell with provit letter as someone else suggested.

On a side note, you mentioned owing money from 2011-2017 but have you actually made any payments or communicated to BG or any other company about this? If not, then more than 6 years have passed making any potential debt statute barred (granted the outstanding amount was billed before 2014 and you haven't made payments/contact with them).

Please let us know what happens.

dexterrescue

Hi everyone, thanks so much for your responses!

So answers in order:

1. From memory (I have checked my emails as far as I can) I closed the account with BG and everything was settled when I left the property in 2017. I was on good terms with the landlady as well and I've never heard anything from her in terms of chasing letters after I left. The letter from BG (included in the envelope from Lowells) has the same account number as featured on the Lowells letter but NEITHER letter mentions any address of property.

2. Thanks so much for the provit template. Hugely helpful. I've printed this off and plan to send it later today. I have not included my name or current address, only the Lowells customer reference they have used on their letter.

3. Good to know I am not the only one! I haven't made any payments or spoken to BG about the 2011-2017 property since I left in 2017. I cannot even access the BG website to check "my account" as it doesn't exist. I contacted BG directly and they say they have no record of outstanding debt against the account number referenced in the letter(s)

I also went online to check my credit rating and there are no faults against my credit file so this "debt" is not impacting me in any serious way outside of the letters from Lowells.

dexterrescue

Hi all, so I finally got a letter from Lowell with a bunch of attached print outs of my account from BG with the original account number and the outstanding amount. Given they have provided evidence of my unpaid account (still cannot believe I didn't pay £218!!) am I correct in assuming I will have to set up some sort of payment system to Lowell now? 

DMC7

I have also got this letter and im really annoyed and not getting any answers. I did have debt with British Gas which I was repaying via prepayment meters. I contacted British Gas before Christmas to ask what was my current debt to be told I did not have any and it was cleared. I was really pleased then shocked to get this letter from Lowells a couple of months later. it is apparently from my previous rented property and its the final bill. I have contacted  BG to ask why I wasn't aware of this debt. They knew my address I continued my account with them to my current property. Why wasn't I given the opportunity to repay this money to BG before it was sold to a debt collecting company? I have had a response from BG saying contact Lowells which I have but they wont know the answers to these questions. Does anyone have any suggestions? I may well owe this money I was having a lot of problems at the time however as I said when I moved addresses approx. 4 years ago I continued with BG so have always had my contact details. Any advice would be appreciated whilst I wait for a response from lowells

NB88377

Hi there. My partner received a Lowell letter in late January 2020 saying she owed BG approx £500 dating back to Feb 2015 when a house was sold.  Fortunately we have bank statements showing £200 being paid to BG in March-June 2015 and provided this to Lowell, but they have come back and said BG have no record of this amount being credited to the account. BG never provided any statements of amounts owing after Feb 2015 despite them having a new contact address for my partner. Its impossible to contact BG over this and the Online account my partner had with BG has been disabled. Any advice would be much appreciated