Simplicity administrators trying to say I owe money when accounts closed in February 2020

nmurton

 closed my account with Simplicity in February 2020 before they went into liquidation.  I was somewhat surprised to receive an letter from Credit Style some 14 months after my account was closed.  I provided Credit Style will all of the evidence of the final payment, evidence the final payment was made, evidence that Simplicity closed the account because I had. made the final payment.  Credit Style eventually said that the matter was unactionable and they would. have no more dealings with me and that they would not be chasing me for any funds.  Apparently "unactionable" does not mean I don't owe the money and the administrators are now messaging me directly and saying I still owe £325.13 and they have sent me a spreadsheet which apparently shows this is owed.

I am totally baffled as to why it has taken 14 months for anyone to get in touch, why when I have provided all of the evidence from Simplicity themselves that the account was closed, they cancelled my direct debit, and confirmation that I paid my closing balance has been provided, Credit Style say it is "unactionable" why the administrator thinks its acceptable to continue.

Has anyone else had this - any advice please as this is really making me feel very stressed. 

MWT

No easy answer here... 'Unactionable' certainly doesn't mean 'nothing owed' just that they are not going to waste time chasing it.

There is only one right answer to the question 'did you pay for everything you used?'

... and that may be a different answer to 'did you pay every bill you were sent?'

I would suspect that spreadsheet is probably showing you that they believe you used more energy than you were billed for at the time so they are asking you to pay the amount that was not previously correctly billed...

If so then you would need to show that the meter readings they are using are wrong, or that they have failed to account for a payment you have made etc. ...

... or you just ignore it and hope that they also decide in the end that it isn't 'actionable'.... (I don't recommend that if you can prove they are wrong...)

nmurton

Thank you so much for your reply.  To be honest, I am going to struggle with the meter readings as this account was closed in February 2020, it's a stoke of luck that I have kept all of the e-mails pertaining to the final balances, and the closing of the account.  It seems completely arbitrary to me that they can contact me after all this time to say there has been a mistake and I have used more than I paid for.   Surely if they send you a final invoice, you pay that final invoice and they close the account they can't come after you 14 months later.  If I can't prove what I did use, how can they do likewise?

MWT

Generally speaking there is a period of up to 6 years to fix something like this.

There are back-billing rules that can help in some cases when you are dealing with a going-concern, but once they are in administration those rules no longer have any force.

Obviously I don't know exactly what they have sent to you, but in short it should be as simple as taking the difference between the opening reading when you started your account and the closing reading when you ended it and showing that the total used has been paid for...

Companies go broke for a number of reasons and one of them is failing to bill for everything they should have billed for, so it is naturally something the administrators are going to look for as they have an obligation to recover as much as possible for the creditors of the company.

nmurton

So I sent the administrators an e-mail last year, I provided all the information they wanted and I haven't heard another thing, the e-mail I sent to them was last August. So today I get a letter from Credit Style to collect the money for the Administrators for Simplicity Energy with a new reference number.    The amount has reduced slightly this time but it appears as if Credit Style are starting all over again with me. I can't believe that after having parted company with Simplicity in February 2020, provided evidence of final bills to both Credit Style and the administrator that I am once again being hassled for money. Is this happening to anyone else please as it's making me really, really stressed.

[Deleted User]

Administrators have a legal responsibility to ensure that all monies owed to the failed company are recovered. I should imagine that this could involve auditing closed accounts. It is up to the Administrator to prove that you owe them money.

Brie

I would simply send them an email back saying "please see attached evidence provided to you a year ago to show the account was paid in full."  

And then sit back and wait another 12 months.