Yorkshire energy debt

swmumx3

I've had a email from a debt collection company about a yorkshire energy debt from a couple of years ago.
It was with another company originally as I had emailed them to say I couldn't afford to pay it and that also Yorkshire energy had estimated most bills and I didn't agree with the total owed. I heard nothing from them again and a year later have just received a email from a different company saying despite contacting me on various occasions I haven't contacted them and the debt will be escalated if I don't contact them, today's email was the first one ive received from them.
We are on benefits as my husband has terminal cancer and I'm his carer and I don't know what to do about this debt.
Anyone please advise. Thankyou

QrizB

Get out your Yorkjshire Energy bills, your opening and closing meter readings, and use them to work out how much you actually owed YE for the energy you used while you were their customer.

Then add up all the payments you made to them.

If the first number is bigger than the second, that is how much you owe them. This number should match what the debt collection agency are asking for.

If the numbers don't match, to within a pound or two, there's something amiss.

swmumx3

Hi thankyou for the quick reply unfortunately it was all online and I haven't been able to access them since they passed on to debt agency, I can still sign in to ye account but it shows nothing whatsoever now.
It's a oversight on my part not to save them all but them closing was around the time my husband got ill so priority was him, so I guess I probably can't fight it now, I don't dispute I have a debt but not as much as they said,  but if I can only make a token payment every month do they have to accept it? 

brewerdave

Have they sent any supporting evidence other than the demand ? If not, I would suggest going on the Debt free board and finding a template for a "prove it" letter to send to them by post. DON'T phone them !

swmumx3

Thanks Brewerdave, no supporting evidence, and nothing from this company other than this first email today asking to get in touch to pay my debt or they will escalate it.
I will look at the debt free board now thankyou

worrywart_3

If it’s been passed to another agency it may be the first didn’t have the evidence and it’s been sold on. Prove it letter definetly when you closed the account did you have a final bill that was all paid ? How much are they claiming you owe ? Do the closing reads March opening with new supplier ? 

QrizB

swmumx3 said:

Thanks Brewerdave, no supporting evidence, and nothing from this company other than this first email today asking to get in touch to pay my debt or they will escalate it.
I will look at the debt free board now thankyou

This is the link to the "Prove It" letter template and advice:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2607247/letter-when-you-know-nothing-about-about-the-debt-aka-prove-it-letter

Section62

swmumx3 said:

It was with another company originally as I had emailed them to say I couldn't afford to pay it and that also Yorkshire energy had estimated most bills and I didn't agree with the total owed. I heard nothing from them again and a year later have just received a email from a different company saying despite contacting me on various occasions I haven't contacted them and the debt will be escalated if I don't contact them, today's email was the first one ive received from them.

Do you know the name of this other company?  When YE went into administration the administrators started following up debt balances.  They were remarkably generous with the repayment terms they  offered.  Could it have been the administrators you were dealing with originally?

The YE site is still active, it says outstanding debts have been passed over to Barratt Smith Brown (with contact details), but there are no contact details for the administrators.

wild666

You can go through previous bank statements to find out how much you paid YE and if you are still with the provider you moved to from YE then you will have an opening reading from your energy company. Also if you have the closing reading from the energy provider you moved from to YE and you were on a fixed rate the total of what you paid  YE you can work out what the total usage was including the SC.

for example you moved to YE from British Gas and your closing readings were 1234, electric and 7890 gas, then your opening readings for YE are the same but the closing readings are 2345 electric and 9879 gas and a SC of 16p then you take the closing readings from YE from the closing readings from BG then if you have a smart meter the kWh is just a matter of multiplying the electric reading by the price per kWh then adding the number of days SC to that figure. For gas multiply the figure by 11.3 then multiply by the price per kWh and add the same number of days SC. 
You then have to take the total of those from the total of the payments you paid YE, even if you owe them money send them a prove it letter it is highly likely that they cannot prove it so will drop their claim.