Unexpected bill demand by Administrators for People's Energy

cx6

What we don't know if if the OP had a final bill at the time, and this is just a chase-up.

born_again

TELLIT01 said:

JHoney said:

I'm stunned to receive a bill from the Administrators for £152 when People's Energy haven't supplied our energy since the beginning of 2021.  We switched to Avro in Dec 2019, everything was paid by DD and we've never messed around with bills or failed to pay them.  The switch went fine, life went on and I received nothing further from People's Energy, I've not had any emails or letters that I know of alerting me to any debt.  So today this demand for payment has turned up, which considering how bad things are right now is a really bad joke that I'm not finding funny.  I can't see how we can owe them any money when we didn't cancel the DD until about 6 months ago, if they had an amount to collect then surely they would have collected it? If it's a collection failure on their part then am I even liable for anything owed after all this time? I've never had this situation before, if anyone has any ideas how to proceed or what my legal rights are here I'd be very grateful for advice. 

If People's Energy haven't supplied you since the beginning of 2021, why was the DD continued until 6 months ago?  Did you still owe them money when you switched away from them?  If not, presumably they actually owe you money if they continued to collect the DD after you switched.

Advice is to leave DD in place when transferred between companies when they have failed. As sometime the new company simply takes over the DD rather than setting up a new one.
Also means if a refund is required it can be done via DD.

Jumblebumble

Manxman_in_exile said:

Perhaps I'm being over-critical, but I always find it very difficult to understand how these "disputes" or "differences" ever arise in the first place.

Surely with any energy (and now water) provision you're dealing with a product which is actually measured by a meter as it is consumed?  And then you receive periodic bills and/or statements that give you a bill amount together with the meter readings (either actual or estimated) upon which that bill is based.  (Plus details of any fixed charges and what period they cover).

You can always check any charges against your own readings and take your own readings when moving house or changing provider - can't you?  Am I missing something?

I'm wondering if the OP might be confused regarding time periods as the dates in the first two sentences don't make sense - there's a year missing?  (Might be a typo or it may be the source of the problem - who knows).

Allow me to explain and also assist the OP as well
I was with Simplicity and as far as I was concerned they had billed me final amount on my last Direst Debit
Their adminstrators debt collectors contacted me informing me I owed around £150.00
At this point I decided to log into my account so I could double check
Of course the imbeceles had disabled the online account so naturally I sent the debt collectors an email requesting a fuill list of all payments etc
It seems that they did not have access to this information either and fortunatly  I have not heard from them for a while.

My advice to the OP is to ask them to produce the same

born_again

This is exactly the reason ML advises to get copies of all your bills & final payments. If they disable you online acc, then you should be getting a paper statement.

Manxman_in_exile

Jumblebumble said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

Perhaps I'm being over-critical, but I always find it very difficult to understand how these "disputes" or "differences" ever arise in the first place.

Surely with any energy (and now water) provision you're dealing with a product which is actually measured by a meter as it is consumed?  And then you receive periodic bills and/or statements that give you a bill amount together with the meter readings (either actual or estimated) upon which that bill is based.  (Plus details of any fixed charges and what period they cover).

You can always check any charges against your own readings and take your own readings when moving house or changing provider - can't you?  Am I missing something?

I'm wondering if the OP might be confused regarding time periods as the dates in the first two sentences don't make sense - there's a year missing?  (Might be a typo or it may be the source of the problem - who knows).

Allow me to explain and also assist the OP as well
...
Of course the imbeceles had disabled the online account so naturally I sent the debt collectors an email requesting a fuill list of all payments etc
...

But that doesn't explain anything.  I don't understand why anybody can't put themselves in a position where they are immediately able to reconcile bills and other payment demands against their meter readings.  

Why were Simplicity "imbeciles" for disabling access to your account after you left them?  That is exactly what I'd expect them to do.  Why would you expect any different?

As @born_again suggests, if you are contemplating leaving an energy provider it's only prudent (and common sense) to make sure you have access to paper or other records of your time as a customer with them, and to ensure that before you leave.

If a former customer has a paper trail proving that a "final" bill is wrong but the energy provider simply won't accept that, then yes - that's a problem.  But I don't understand a former customer saying "I've received a late  bill and I haven't a clue if it's right or not.  What do I do????"

[Deleted User]

mobileron said:

I understand theres a 12 month time limit on back billing does this apply.https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/check-energy-back-billing-rules

This is a grey area as People’s Energy no longer holds a Supply Licence it is no longer subject to Licence Conditions. Normally, the Back Billing Code does not apply to Final Bills. Without seeing any detail, it is impossible to glean from what has been written above whether this is nothing more than a correction to a Final Bill. If so, the Administrator is entitled to seek payment for up to 6 years

GraceCourt

born_again said:

Advice is to leave DD in place when transferred between companies when they have failed. As sometime the new company simply takes over the DD rather than setting up a new one.
Also means if a refund is required it can be done via DD.

The danger of doing so is where there is any possibility of the billing system being in chaos prior to the original supplier ceasing trading, as with Green Energy Supplier Limited, T/A "Green Energy".  I've received two demands for over £800 from "credit management" company (debt collectors!!) Credit Style Limited, to whom I've written, advising them that at the time of its collapse, Green Energy had just been ordered by the Energy Ombudsman to pay me £100 for its billing chaos, which included "losing" a card payment to them of £375 for which, thankfully, I have the receipt.

That payment of £375 was made in May 2021 because Green Energy had blocked the transfer of my electricity supply to a new supplier, but despite that payment, the transfer subsequently still did not go through.  Leaving the Direct Debit in place would simply have allowed the new supplier to take over £800 from our account when in fact this alleged "debt" doesn't exist.

born_again

You cancel the DD once you have started paying the new company.

So to be clear. You left Green energy before they went bust? Or where you still with them when they went bust & were transferred to Shell?

So you should have all the bills with readings on to compare.

GraceCourt

born_again said:

Or where you still with them when they went bust & were transferred to Shell?

So you should have all the bills with readings on to compare.

Yes and "mostly".  The original complaint to the Energy Ombudsman was the failure of Green Energy to transfer us to a new company.  But during the processing of that complaint, Green Energy submitted a plethora of bills, some cancelled, some not cancelled (the tariff was an online one).  In the interests of brevity, I omitted extraneous detail from my post, but one of the cancelled bills does correctly show the £375 payment, but none of the later non-cancelled bills include it, although they do show Direct Debit credits for the period in question.  I had just pointed this out when the EO made a ruling on the existing submissions, which was to award compensation at the higher rate (£100) because of the failure to bill properly.  A week later, they went bust, and I received a further e-mail from the EO apologising that consequently the compensation award couldn't be enforced.

However, the bills submitted to the EO didn't include a final bill, far less an agreed accurate final bill.  I've advised Credit Style that the entire amount is disputed until any final bill is issued and agreed, but they haven't replied - not even to the Subject Access Request made as part of my correspondence.

born_again

So you will have a meter reading submitted to shell as a starting point. For your dispute with debt collector. Who may end up just throwing it back to administrator.

I can see why you will not get the £100 as they are no longer trading, so you have to become a creditor and hope for pence in the pound if anything at all.