Eversmart / Utilita

Edmonoo

When Eversmart ceased trading last year 2019 I was moved to utilita. I soon realised that utilita were useless and expensive so moved on to another supplier -  Feb '20 I settled my final bill with them and am no longer a customer.
Today I received a bill from utilita for money I owed Eversmart. No proof that I owe this money, just a bill for £68. 
I phoned utilita who were no help - just repeated that I owe this amount.
Is this something I have to pay - Is there a time limit (Eversmart ceased trading Aug/Sep '19) - should they provide more paperwork to prove I owe £68?
When I left utilita I thought I was done with them but hard to shake of this outfit.

MWT

Sadly they can still come after you for a debt that recent, generally 6 years would have to elapse before it would be barred...

... but yes, they do have to give you more detail, an invoice alone will not do it.

From the sound of things, you never received a final invoice  from Eversmart and it is that which you should be receiving now.

It should show the final meter reading at the point you were transferred, which should match the opening reading on your first Utilita invoice, and your account balance before the final usage charge was applied. The result should be the £68 they are claiming.

Kitchen_Sink

Edmonoo said:

When Eversmart ceased trading last year 2019 I was moved to utilita. I soon realised that utilita were useless and expensive so moved on to another supplier -  Feb '20 I settled my final bill with them and am no longer a customer.
Today I received a bill from utilita for money I owed Eversmart. No proof that I owe this money, just a bill for £68. 
I phoned utilita who were no help - just repeated that I owe this amount.
Is this something I have to pay - Is there a time limit (Eversmart ceased trading Aug/Sep '19) - should they provide more paperwork to prove I owe £68?
When I left utilita I thought I was done with them but hard to shake of this outfit.

Welcome to MSE.

Did you see this report ny MSE last September when Eversmart ceased to supply?
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2019/09/small-supplier-eversmart-energy-stops-trading---what-you-need-to/

[Deleted User]

UTILITA - DO NOT OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH THEM

I tried for THREE MONTHS to get in touch with Utilita over the closing "Eversmart" account - I tried during this time to contact Eversmart but got absolutely no response from them because they went into liquidation - there was literally nobody there to answer the phone or emails - they had shut down!!  

After three months of calling and emailing Utilita without any response I raised a complaint in December 2019. Someone from their complaints team called me I think just before Christmas, apologised for the lack of customer service and we agreed the figure that would be brought forward from Eversmart - it was about right based on estimated monthly usage. I then was sent a final bill from Eversmart which showed this. 

Since then, in January I started getting a whole load of monthly bills, backdated to when Eversmart went under, from Utilita, at a very high rate - about 30-40% too high. I queried this with them and since then something happened and I have received, among others, an invoice, for April, for £840. I was then informed after further chasing that this was because the opening balance had been re-estimated, without any dialogue with me, nor seemingly any reasonable logic, and that there would be no further discussion and I should contact the Ombudsman service. 

The last bill I got from Utilita, last week, put the balance due, to £930 if I recall correctly, and was at an estimated level of usage of £1,605 per year. For a small well insulated 3 bedroom house. Do you think that this is a fair or reasonable estimated usage? My cheap energy club account, which contains actual usage figures, puts my usage as follows - Gas usage: 13033 kWh per Year and Elec usage: 2668 kWh per Year - and the current quote is £782/year, so the Utilita estimated usage figure is actually more than double what I should be paying.

I have now explained this to the fifth person at Utilita. I do not think they have any idea just how much anxiety and stress this has caused me, at a time when we are all suffering with the fallout of Covid-19. I have been more than patient - given that I first lodged a complaint in Dec-19 this is now SIX MONTHS later. I feel absolutely disgusted at the way Utilita has treated me in the past few months, it is totally unacceptable that not only has my account been totally cocked up by them, and that I have already been chased for payment of this totally nonsensical and fictional sum (which I expect has impacted my credit rating), but to add final insult to injury, I am now being prevented from moving my supply to a reasonable supplier by them.
It seems I am still unable to speak to the actual people who are making these seemingly arbitrary decisions, but am in the meantime expected to pay almost £1,000 in fictional invoices. If I wasn't so stressed out about the whole thing I might think it was a joke, but it's not, is it, it instead very real.

Gerry1

n1ck0 said:

I have been more than patient - given that I first lodged a complaint in Dec-19 this is now SIX MONTHS later.

Welcome to the forum.

Forget the ££ because they just confuse the issue: they're distorted by non-comparable tariffs, and that DD payments and balances don't necessarily reflect actual usage.  Instead, just concentrate on the actual meter readings and their accuracy.

As you don't know your opening balance, it sounds like you haven't been taking monthly readings.   However, without them, you should be able to make a reasonable guess by going back to the last actual annual readings on your Eversmart bills and extrapolating from there.

As it's been so long, why haven't you gone to the Ombudsman?

[Deleted User]

Gerry1 said:

n1ck0 said:

I have been more than patient - given that I first lodged a complaint in Dec-19 this is now SIX MONTHS later.

Welcome to the forum.

Forget the ££ because they just confuse the issue: they're distorted by non-comparable tariffs, and that DD payments and balances don't necessarily reflect actual usage.  Instead, just concentrate on the actual meter readings and their accuracy.

As you don't know your opening balance, it sounds like you haven't been taking monthly readings.   However, without them, you should be able to make a reasonable guess by going back to the last actual annual readings on your Eversmart bills and extrapolating from there.

As it's been so long, why haven't you gone to the Ombudsman?

Been trying to get them to see reason, was dealing initially with two seemingly decent people, then one of them got furloughed, then the other one said that the person i needed to speak to “was not customer facing” and she then recommended i go to the ombudsman. Pretty sneaky way to keep me on their more than twice the cost of the best tarriff.
I have never needed to go to an ombudsman , but now I am being told that they’re looking at 28 day delays due to Covid-19.
Me and wife are both NHS workers, don’t get paid much. Today, in spite of their promises that payment chasing would be put on hold, I got a text from Utilita telling me i owe them £959, yes, NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE pounds. The f*ckers have me over a barrel here and there seems to be nothing i can do about it. It’s absolutely disgusting and is causing me serious stress. 
Should i get a loan to pay the stitch up merchants off just so i can get away from them and then wait for the ombudsman to rule? 

Daffion

I received a letter yesterday asking for money from Utilita from an Eversmart account which I moved to another energy provider in 2018. All the final bills were dealt with then and we moved fine. No idea why they are sending this now and don't believe it's money I owe.  I have started a Resolver complaint to get them to deal with it.  

Numberwang_2

I switched from Eversmart 15th May 2018, account finalised (although I never received an actual final bill) as they were blocking my switch I paid via web chat to allow the switch and they refunded me £20 On finalisation on 6th June 2018. Now Utilita have sent me a final invoice wanting the £20 back! Letter dated 15th June 2020, as over 12 months have past can they still chase this?

CRISPIANNE3

Very surprised to receive gas and final electricity bills from when I had an account with Eversmart today.  I left them in April 2019. The bill was received via Utilita and the good news is they owe me 8p and will be sending me a cheque for said amount. I would normally tell any company not to bother but as I am able just to scan the cheque into my bank account via my smart phones it's not too much  effort on my part having to bank it.

matchmade2

Another energy company that completely messed up my transfer from never-smart Eversmart. Expensive tarrifs, arrogant staff, who demand immediate payment if they think you owe them money - based on inaccurate data from Eversmart - but take months to even look at my claim for a refund. Avoid these people like the plague.

[Deleted User]

Just want to add my voice to this. Utilita are seriously bad news. God help you if you are with them I am still fighting to get some reason and logic out of them. They don't care, they want to take your money for the wrong bills, and my God it shows when you actually speak to someone there.