Neo Energy and Octopus

daveyjp

Responding proves you exist.

File the emails and ignore.  First hurdle in claiming money from someone is to prove the debt.  I doubt Neo can.

Qyburn

daveyjp said:

Responding proves you exist.

File the emails and ignore.  First hurdle in claiming money from someone is to prove the debt.  I doubt Neo can.

They certainly know he exists, he's been paying them for two years. I don't think ignoring is the best option here.

For me they sent a full statement with meter readings, unit prices etc covering the entire period, offset by the amounts they recognised that I'd paid. Both were full of errors but weren't self evidently wrong. Without my counter arguments they would appear to be proving the debt.

Did they send anything similar to support their claim, or just a figure with nothing to back it up?

baser999

Pretty much the same here - periods of usage, rates at that time etc. My main concern initially (although will need to sit and go through it all again tomorrow) was the rates. The total usage for the two years I was with them was in the order of £4700 I think, and after taking off what I’d paid left a supposed debt of about £2500. My annual bills have never been over £1200pa so not sure how it’s doubled.
Going back to an earlier post, does a threat of debt collection in email format have any legal standing or should it be in letter form as has been suggested? What if agents do turn up here as threatened?

Qyburn

Debt collectors have no power, all they can do is ask you to pay. If they turn up then tell them to go away, but in reality they would write in the first instance.

Unfortunately I don't think there's any choice but to go through their workings, and create your own for comparison. You don't need to work out each month, you only need start and end readings for each tariff period. You may have to interpolate if you don't have readings right on the day of change.

In my case Neo emailed each tariff change, and looking at those emails i could see where they'd charged the wrong rate. But the biggest error in their bill was them including a period of some months when they weren't my supplier. The other big error was them missing some of my payments.

ariarnia

if anyone is worried about debt collators (what they can do and what to expect) then the debt free board on here is full of really helpful people and lots of info already posted in the stickies

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/debt-free-wannabe

Lenny333

Hi All,

I’m new here and have a question for you…

My 86 year old parents were with Neo and now have a final reminder on an invoice for £650 threatening bailiffs if they don’t pay in 7 days. They asked me (their son) to help. 

This is what I have found out in summary…

1) The bill is correct
2) The Neo energy website says they will NOT use debt collectors or credit agencies. 

3) OFGEM says don’t pay and contact Octopus
4) Octopus says don’t pay and that they’re not aware of any old Neo customers being contacted by bailiffs. 

This is really stressing out my parents so I’m pretty tempted to say that they should just pay and hope it all goes away but then I read about Neo Energy and the UKEIH and it all sounds very dodgy and I wonder just where that money would end up.  

Any thoughts or experience from anybody, sure would help. 

Thanks for reading a long post!

Qyburn

Hi,
The situation with Neo is unusual in that Neo themselves have not gone out of business, rather it was the outfit they partnered with to get their supply licence. So as of the latest information that I've seen Neo Energy Ltd company number 12015844 are still in business and would be entitled to collect any valid debts.

By the way the threat of debt collectors does not mean bailiffs, for bailiffs to get involved they'd have to go to court, win, and for the judgement to remain unpaid.

If you believe the invoice is correct, one option might be to write offering to pay it off at so much per month.

baser999

Lenny333 said:

Hi All,

I’m new here and have a question for you…

My 86 year old parents were with Neo and now have a final reminder on an invoice for £650 threatening bailiffs if they don’t pay in 7 days. They asked me (their son) to help. 

This is what I have found out in summary…

1) The bill is correct
2) The Neo energy website says they will NOT use debt collectors or credit agencies. 

3) OFGEM says don’t pay and contact Octopus
4) Octopus says don’t pay and that they’re not aware of any old Neo customers being contacted by bailiffs. 

This is really stressing out my parents so I’m pretty tempted to say that they should just pay and hope it all goes away but then I read about Neo Energy and the UKEIH and it all sounds very dodgy and I wonder just where that money would end up.  

Any thoughts or experience from anybody, sure would help. 

Thanks for reading a long post!

Since my original post, I’ve now had another chance today to thoroughly check the invoice that was sent ‘supposedly’ by Neo in September demanding some £2700+, for which I’d already had a subsequent reminder and then last week a threat to refer to debt collection. Glad to say, my findings concur with what I’d found initially - although I’m no longer able to locate the precise meter readings I’d sent Neo, I do have opening and closing balances, and they’ve charged me for an excessive amount for both utilities. Also, as far as the gas is concerned, they’ve charged me at the electric unit rate, something like 0.19 instead of 0.03. Lenny, check they’ve not done the same with your parents bill, assuming it’s genuine.
All in all, I reckon I could still owe them around £500, rather than their £2700, but will await a revised invoice before paying them anything. Ironically the figure of £500 equates to around 4 monthly direct debit payments which they didn’t claim from March to July

Qyburn

baser999 said:

Ironically the figure of £500 equates to around 4 monthly direct debit payments which they didn’t claim from March to July

That was the period when they cancelled everyone's Direct Debits wasn't it.  Did you make any payments?  I did and those were the payments they didn't allocate to my account, one of the many errors in their final statement.

baser999

Qyburn said:

baser999 said:

Ironically the figure of £500 equates to around 4 monthly direct debit payments which they didn’t claim from March to July

That was the period when they cancelled everyone's Direct Debits wasn't it.  Did you make any payments?  I did and those were the payments they didn't allocate to my account, one of the many errors in their final statement.

No payments made, checked my bank account. Am still not convinced this isn’t some scam though, the terminology in their latest letter just isn’t as ‘professional’ as you’d expect. Still, let’s see what ensues