Taking utility to court

Ekuuleus

<I>The computers don't programme themselves, or write and post the chasing letters, or man the call centre, or pay the lost interest on a reduced income.<I>

Those computer programs have to be written for successful payments too.  Apportioning all the costs seems inappropriate.  Sounds like you are advocating a fee for successful payments too.

Chasing letters are automated.  The time people spend responding is a far far greater cost to society.
Deliberately wasting people's time is also a strategy used with cold calling, not knowing the case details.  People have actual jobs so utilities using call holding and cold calling becomes a deliberate strategy to waste peoples time.
So they should pay the interest on my credit balances?



<I>And having no penalty for paying late means that everyone may as well pay late, so that's a price increase for everyone, instead of only the late payers paying for late payments.
</i>

Kind of agree, that just fails though when companies build it into their process to make it difficult for customers.

Overall,   I didn't have a problem it taking a while to sort out the credit balance.  But there is no way I'm going to keep handing out money.

<I>
When they sent the first email, that was the time to have got in touch with them to set it back up again. It's not clear why you didn't, but that's in the past now.</I>

I was expecting the credit balance at property 2 to be quickly sorted out.  I did not expect it to take over a month.

Ekuuleus

When I got the first charge, I did speak to them, I got a load of bull and they deliberately wasted my time.   I've requested the call recording.

When I got the debt collection I called.  I'll listen to the call recording.

bris

Are you treating 2 properties to one account here, i.e you owe on property 1 but want them to take it from property 2's credit?

Thats not going to happen.

The costs you can claim from the small claims court is the cost of bringing the claim, reasonable travel expenses etc it's limited to make it affordable for both parties.

If the other side win and they used a barrister to do so (big companies use them) they can't claim for their fees because it goes against the small claims courts image as being affordale so they can claim but it's not a lot and the judge would be the one to work out wht that will be.

As for the property 2 credit you can cancel the DD so no more payments come out until it's been resolved. The will just take it off the balance. 

Been there done that with BG, I did it in my online account and was never pulled up about it. Future bills just came off the credit although there was an option to get it refunded.

Alderbank

When a supplier of last resort like British Gas takes over a failed company they don't get all the overpayments neatly handed over. You might think those overpayments should be sitting in a ring-fenced client account ready to be passed on but that is not the case. The failed companies argue that their coffers are empty from having to sell gas at a lower price than they were forced to buy, and at collapse they had nothing left.
There is a Government scheme to repay all the overpayments and recover the money from a levy on customers' future bills but like all Government schemes they will not in a rush to pay out.

tl:dr British Gas didn't get your thousands of pounds of overpayment. All they see is that since the day when they took your account over you owe them for energy they have supplied but you have stopped the DD.

Ekuuleus

To clarify, I don't want the over payment on property 2 to offset property 1.  I just want reciprocity.  If they can add charges for none payment on property 1 so quick, why cant they sort out a credit balance they have had for 9 months in the same time frame?

The fact that property 1 is getting a second large credit balance coming over just adds insult to injury.

As to costs and the small claims court, limiting costs seems reasonable, but by the same token, a large company should not just be arbitrarily allowed to unilaterally add costs either. 

Yes, there are costs to doing business.  That's the nature of doing business.  There are far higher costs to individuals to interact with businesses.  People can't automate their interactions like business can.  We have a situation where large companies are gaming the rules to deliberately waste peoples' time so that they either give up or, in my case, I've given up work so I have the time.