Enstroga Ignoring Emails, Threatening Legal Action

sflemin

Hi, this is a bit of a long and tangled story but I'll try and keep it brief. I moved into a new flat in Liverpool back in August 2018, and was at that property until early September 2020. Early on I was told Enstroga were the energy supplier, but they never contacted me and when I tried to contact them over email or phone I could never get through. I then set about trying to change the supplier, and went for E-on, but Enstroga blocked the switch, without ever getting in touch with me to explain why. The switch eventually went through a couple of months later, and I have bills to prove E-on were supplying me at that address right up until I moved out. I never thought any more of it until a couple of months ago, when Enstroga emailed me out the blue, saying I owed them £1,017.68 and threatening legal action if I didn't pay up. (this was shortly before they went out of business...) Since then I have phoned and emailed them several times to explain the situation, and sometimes the person I speak to on the phone seems to be taking onboard what I'm saying, but it always ends the same: several weeks of silence, then more threatening emails. The emails I've sent to them are quite long and detailed, containing evidence that E-on was the supplier, but no-one ever seems to read them. I think I MIGHT owe them some money for the period before E-on took over, but certainly not anywhere near over £1,000, and frankly I would grudge giving them a penny at this point after they've handled the situation so incompetently and aggressively. However, all the talk of legal action does put me slightly on edge, as even though I'd be confident of persuading a third part of the merits of my case I wouldn't want there to be a record of this kind of action being taken against me. The other thing is, while going through the process of all this two separate suppliers that I've had dealings with (Ovo and E-on) have sent me a list of all the recent suppliers at that address, and that list shows that Enstroga stopped supplying the address on August 2017. So it looks like they might NEVER have been my supplier in the first place?! 
 All advice very much appreciated, thanks         

JJ_Egan

Day one when you moved in you where in a deemed contract with the existing supplier ,.

If as you say Enstroga where not the supplier how could they block a switch .

You would owe the existing supplier from the date you moved in until change of supplier ( you have meter readings i hope ).

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

The moral of the story is that when moving to a new property, you always read the meters, send the readings to the incumbent suppliers along with your DD details, using Royal Mail if necessary.

You may be paying for the usage by the previous occupier and/or when it was empty.

Sadly, after all this time it may be better to pay up and put it down to experience, otherwise your credit rating may get trashed and that may cause problems in the future with mortgages etc.  But do insist on a fully itemised bill.

sflemin

Honestly, I don't know, but the below seems fairly clear? I don't have any meter readings sadly, no, it all seems very long ago now.

Gerry1

Does your screenshot relate to dual fuel?  If not, Enstroga could still have been supplying you with one fuel after you moved in.

EssexHebridean

where do Scottish Power come into the equation? From that screenshot it appears that in fact they may have been your supplier early on, and in fact EOn picked up the supply from them when you made the switch. 

You have two options here. Firstly you don't need to respond to anything by email chasing debts - contact of that type need to be through the post. You can literally just ignore them if you choose. However, another alternative may be to write to them - again, hard copy, in the post - confirming to them that you were not the resident of the property at the time they were the supplier, and so they are pursuing the wrong person. 

This does all throw up another question though - and that is whether in fact you owe SP for 8 months of fuel you've never paid for. Who were you paying for your use during that time period? 

sflemin

Gerry1 said:

Welcome to the forum.

The moral of the story is that when moving to a new property, you always read the meters, send the readings to the incumbent suppliers along with your DD details, using Royal Mail if necessary.

You may be paying for the usage by the previous occupier and/or when it was empty.

Sadly, after all this time it may be better to pay up and put it down to experience, otherwise your credit rating may get trashed and that may cause problems in the future with mortgages etc.  But do insist on a fully itemised bill.

Thanks for the welcome!
I see what you're saying, but I certainly don't have a spare £1017.68 lying around at the moment, and given that their record keeping is terrible and they've gone out of business it seems like they don't have that strong a hand to play.

sflemin

EssexHebridean said:

where do Scottish Power come into the equation? From that screenshot it appears that in fact they may have been your supplier early on, and in fact EOn picked up the supply from them when you made the switch. 

You have two options here. Firstly you don't need to respond to anything by email chasing debts - contact of that type need to be through the post. You can literally just ignore them if you choose. However, another alternative may be to write to them - again, hard copy, in the post - confirming to them that you were not the resident of the property at the time they were the supplier, and so they are pursuing the wrong person. 

This does all throw up another question though - and that is whether in fact you owe SP for 8 months of fuel you've never paid for. Who were you paying for your use during that time period? 

Thanks for this. Honestly, I have no idea about the Scottish Power thing, I don't remember ever having any dealings with them. All I remember is the Enstroga back and forth dragging on for a while, then I started paying bills to E-on around March 2019. I had a direct debit with Enstroga at one point, but it was for a very strange, nominal amount, £8.66 or something like that. Which again just illustrates the odd way they operated... I'm fairly sure that if I am liable for anything it's not £1017, because they said that was the figure owed up to September 2020, long after my E-on switch, which they seemed not be aware of, despite having blocked it first time around. 

Gerry1

Once again, does this all relate to dual fuel accounts?? If not, that could well explain matters.

sflemin

Gerry1 said:

Once again, does this all relate to dual fuel accounts?? If not, that could well explain matters.

Sorry, this probably makes me sound dim, but I'm not 100% sure! I don't think so though. Is there a way I could find out for sure, off old bills for example?

EssexHebridean

The dual fuel thing *could* be an answer - do you have electricity AND gas? Or just electric? If not, and you were paying Enstroga then it would actually start to appear that in fact it might be they who owe YOU money - which would be an interesting development! (And is unlikely to outweigh anything you owe to SP, of course). If not a dual fuel issue then the main point here is that you cannot owe Enstroga money as they were never your supplier...

I take it that you were setting aside the money that you were expecting to pay for energy bills so you do have at least the amount you were budgeting ready to pay should it transpire that it is owed somewhere?