My Letting Agents illegally switched my Gas Supplier, now I am dealing with Mafia SSE

Mstty

[Deleted User] said:

Mstty said:

There is no lie in the fact if they were not transferred from Octopus without their consent they could have taken advantage of any of the cheaper tariffs Octopus offered during the two year period. Tracker is just one example of that. One that people are flocking to in great numbers it appears to save even now.

The OP has gone some way to explain why things may have been missed so I believe them and don't need them to divulge further issues, reasons and medical history. 

I wish the OP the best of luck with their case

But that was not any supplier’s fault: it was the fault of the letting agent. No Court in land would ever consider a claim based on ‘I could have switched to Tracker’ and saved £00s. Indeed, if he had tried to do so, Octopus would have told him a lot earlier that it was no longer his gas supplier.

Hi dolor, being the fourth person to come back I am waiting for the 5th or 6th but this is a problem on this forum that if you have an unpopular view several long standing forum members will try and force your view off the forum almost in a ganging up style one after ethe other. It is very sad circumstance that happens on this forum time and time again.

 This is a consequence of what has happened whether the OP uses this with the lettings agents or ombudsman is up to them but it is a valid consequence imo after reading their mitigating circumstances in not noticing the switch.

[Deleted User]

Mstty said:

[Deleted User] said:

Mstty said:

There is no lie in the fact if they were not transferred from Octopus without their consent they could have taken advantage of any of the cheaper tariffs Octopus offered during the two year period. Tracker is just one example of that. One that people are flocking to in great numbers it appears to save even now.

The OP has gone some way to explain why things may have been missed so I believe them and don't need them to divulge further issues, reasons and medical history. 

I wish the OP the best of luck with their case

But that was not any supplier’s fault: it was the fault of the letting agent. No Court in land would ever consider a claim based on ‘I could have switched to Tracker’ and saved £00s. Indeed, if he had tried to do so, Octopus would have told him a lot earlier that it was no longer his gas supplier.

Hi dolor, being the fourth person to come back I am waiting for the 5th or 6th but this is a problem on this forum that if you have an unpopular view several long standing forum members will try and force your view off the forum almost in a ganging up style one after ethe other. It is very sad circumstance that happens on this forum time and time again.

 This is a consequence of what has happened whether the OP uses this with the lettings agents or ombudsman is up to them but it is a valid consequence imo after reading their mitigating circumstances in not noticing the switch.

Posters are countering the argument that has been posted not the person that posted it. I would put it to you that most people on this forum would not have thought about Tracker gas 2 years ago.

If the OP was the type of person that bores his family and friends with endless discussions about energy tariffs etc, then he would have noticed the transfer had taken place, and he might have thought about a tariff switch at sometime in the past 2 years: he failed on both counts. The OP clearly has better things to do with his life. From what has been posted, the OP’s loss has been small and the compensation offered generous.

ariarnia

Mstty said:

[Deleted User] said:

Mstty said:

There is no lie in the fact if they were not transferred from Octopus without their consent they could have taken advantage of any of the cheaper tariffs Octopus offered during the two year period. Tracker is just one example of that. One that people are flocking to in great numbers it appears to save even now.

The OP has gone some way to explain why things may have been missed so I believe them and don't need them to divulge further issues, reasons and medical history. 

I wish the OP the best of luck with their case

But that was not any supplier’s fault: it was the fault of the letting agent. No Court in land would ever consider a claim based on ‘I could have switched to Tracker’ and saved £00s. Indeed, if he had tried to do so, Octopus would have told him a lot earlier that it was no longer his gas supplier.

Hi dolor, being the fourth person to come back I am waiting for the 5th or 6th but this is a problem on this forum that if you have an unpopular view several long standing forum members will try and force your view off the forum almost in a ganging up style one after ethe other. It is very sad circumstance that happens on this forum time and time again.

how is anyone trying to force you of the forum by trying to have a conversation about something you posted? 

no one is trying to convince you to change your mind or stop you from posting. just thinking about if there are any seeming problems or risks with the approach you are suggesting or how the op could make it more likely to work from OUR experiences (which might be different but just as valid as yours)

at the end its not up to what we think. the op will decide what argument they want to make. 

HLeung

pochase said:

Mstty said:

pochase said:

Mstty said:

Or the perfect storm of the customer not really paying attention to the news and energy price rises, the DD staying the same so they were thinking they were doing ok on energy use.

Easily done from the visitors here wince the price increases started not knowing how much energy was or their usage.

Going to cut the OP some slack here but agree they need to pay for the last two years gas and the £200 compensation from the lettingagents is not too bad. They could have saved a bit with tracker over two years so that could be the baseline for any savings they could have made.

Why should a cheaper possible tariff be the baseline?

OP clearly never had the thought to use tracker, otherwise he would have realised he is no longer with Octopus.

In my thoughts they would have had that possibility if still with Octopus. Being moved to SSE robbed them of that possibility.

We all see things differently and some will see this as completely the OP fault and others may not.

It's interesting to me to see which side people fall on the forum to these and other posts.

Just putting a different point of view across and one the OP may want to use in their argument or not.

I can't really follow your logic. It is clear that he was not interested in this.

The OP believed he was still with Octopus, so he could have asked Octopus for example for tracker. If he would have tried to do this he would immediately been told that he is not with Octopus any longer. He became only aware when SSE contacted him in July 2022, so he clearly never contacted Octopus.

So why did SSE rob him of this possibility when he clearly never was trying? Or better why did SSE anything wrong, when they did everything by the book? 



The part that is still unclear for me is about the different transfer readings,

I can understand why there would be a different meter reading from the real when if the agent was trying to switch a different flat, with a different reading.

The meter reading might have been wrong, but the wrong reading should have been applied by both suppliers. 

If Octopus really thought it is wrong and did not apply it and refunded based on the meter reading they received they are at fault here. If they queried the meter reading it should have been reviewed, A meter reading might be wrong, and the acceptable difference is quite high, but no matter if to high or to low, both suppliers have to use the same reading as final and opening read.

@Hleung
You need to find the Octopus bill where they closed your gas account. What is the meter reading they used?

Compare this to the opening reading SSE is using. Have they send you copied of the bills they send to your agent so you have access to the bill with the opening reading?

If there is a difference as you are saying, than you have reason for a complaint. As Octopus will have been told what reading to use for the final bill, they are more likely to be at fault here, but either Octopus or SSE will have to adjust their bill based on the reading .

Hello @Pochase

I spoke to Octopus and they confirmed the followings:

21st of May 2020 - 7521 (that's my final Actual reading) 
15th of July 2020 - 6677 ( confirmed change of supply reading that is automatically quarantined by our system) - this is the reading submitted from SSE to Octopus and Octopus did not agree with that reading. However SSE still used the 6677[E] as the opening.

How it was explained to me by Octopus was that the new supplier needs to submit their reading to the old supplier. But Octopus did not have control over SSE if they used a different number, as in this case, since the Letting Agent did't submit the correct Actual, SSE had the liberty to use an estimated reading, whether it was submitted do them by the agent or it was their own estimate, I cannot prove but all I know was they did not use the correct Actual. 

No I never receive copies of the actual bills they sent to the Letting agents. The first bill I had was a revised bill consist of a summary of previous bills and a break down of each period but addressed to me and not to the letting agent. So those bills listed ( cancelled bill) were original bills that were not sent to me.




Also I wanted to re-iterate, I had been relying on Octopus monthly emails to inform my state of account, and I had been accustomed to seeing that my account balance was in credit every month with Octopus, and that implied my DD payment was OK and I also submitted my gas and electricity reading on the Octopus website intermittently. That was the system I had been using to manage my account with Octopus, and because I had been very satisfied with Octopus since 2018, I became complacent with the same system to keeping an eye on my account. 

With regards to better or worst tariffs had I stayed with Octopus, I would be very honest, I won't know but all I could say was, had I stayed with Octopus, at some point by monthly DD would not have covered for the overall industry wide increase and my account balance would have gone into negative and I would have noticed from the monthly email I got from Octopus. But because my gas was switched, and I wasn't aware, the DD payment went to pay just the electricity usage, and the excess had been covering the increase of the electricity rates. And also worth pointed out that in the thread, I showed the tariffs comparison between Octopus and SSE, at July2020 and Current, both show Octopus offered lower rate than SSE. 

HLeung

EssexHebridean said:

I think the OP's biggest issue when presenting the case is going to be not having looked at the bills for 2 years to realise that they weren't paying for any gas - IMO they would do better to work out a plausible argument on that rather than being tempted into lying about tariffs that they "might have been interested in" - when as Pochase says that is easily dealt with by pointing out that had they had any interest in other tariffs sooner they would have discovered the transfer sooner, also!  Personally I'd suggest that when dealing with the Ombudsman being truthful is probably the best way to go - as getting caught out in a lie is unlikely to help one's case much! 

EssexHebridean

I had been very open and honest about my experience. As mentioned in another thread, if I had stayed on with Octopus, and having been paying the same fixed monthly payment to Octopus, I would soon come to notice that my account balance had gone into negative and I would probably felt compelled to investigate and check out better tariffs. The fact that I was not aware of the switch, and my monthly payment had gone into paying for just the electricity and including supplementing for the rise in electricity prices only, my account balance never really hit negative balance! But by the time I discovered in July2022 it just meant my excess credit with Octopus was a lot less because of the electricity price increase. 

pochase

The information you are getting from Octopus does not make any sense.

Here is a link from Octopus describing how the process works.

https://octopus.energy/blog/handover-meter-readings/

Important here is 

Your supplier can't send you a final bill til your handover meter reading is confirmed.

So if they have not accepted the reading for the switch as they are saying, have they closed the gas account or not.

Have you downloaded the bills from Octopus so you can see what they have done? You should look at the bills and not at what a support agent tells you.

For example it is not the new supplier that submits the reading to the old supplier, it is an independent data collector.

Octopus can't just ignore the submitted reading from the data collector, you have been told nonsense. 

[Deleted User]

I repeat what I posted earlier. Your online statements will have shown the reading that Octopus used to close your gas account. From then on, your bills would have shown electricity charges only. See for yourself by checking your old statements online via the Octopus App.

When you submit a manual reading it automatically produces a statement.

I appreciate that you feel hard done by but what is your actual material loss in £s? Can you show that jt is more than the £200 compensation that you have been offered? Forget BackBilling, the suppliers have done nothing wrong. They have acted in good faith on the instructions given to them.

If Octopus can demonstrate that it used the industry-validated reading to close your account then you might have a case to ask SSE to re-bill you to the correct start reading. As I said earlier, the reading provided by the agent is only part of the validation process:


https://help.so.energy/support/solutions/articles/7000046241-opening-reading-validation-process

EssexHebridean

HLeung said:

EssexHebridean said:

I think the OP's biggest issue when presenting the case is going to be not having looked at the bills for 2 years to realise that they weren't paying for any gas - IMO they would do better to work out a plausible argument on that rather than being tempted into lying about tariffs that they "might have been interested in" - when as Pochase says that is easily dealt with by pointing out that had they had any interest in other tariffs sooner they would have discovered the transfer sooner, also!  Personally I'd suggest that when dealing with the Ombudsman being truthful is probably the best way to go - as getting caught out in a lie is unlikely to help one's case much! 

EssexHebridean

I had been very open and honest about my experience. As mentioned in another thread, if I had stayed on with Octopus, and having been paying the same fixed monthly payment to Octopus, I would soon come to notice that my account balance had gone into negative and I would probably felt compelled to investigate and check out better tariffs. The fact that I was not aware of the switch, and my monthly payment had gone into paying for just the electricity and including supplementing for the rise in electricity prices only, my account balance never really hit negative balance! But by the time I discovered in July2022 it just meant my excess credit with Octopus was a lot less because of the electricity price increase. 

I understand all that - and I do understand your reasons for being a bit "off the ball" as well as you stated previously. As I said in the post you have quoted though - I would be incredibly cautious of being in any way untruthful about the tariffs you may have "been interested in" (I appreciate that you haven't as far as I have seen at least made any suggestions that you were considering doing so!) allowing that it is highly likely that the supplier has a pretty solid argument that had you investigated such tariffs it would have "given the game away" that you were in fact no longer supplied by Octopus. 

When I was initially considering taking a complaint to the Ombudsman some time ago, one of the best pieces of advice I was given on the subject was "Keep it simple, open and honest, and ensure that all relevant evidence is included" I did - and in spite of an appeal from the supplier, the ruling went in my favour. 

Gerry1

Glancing back through the thread I can't see any confirmation whether the OP has a metric (m3) or Imperial meter (ft3).  However, a bill seems to have been calculated for an Imperial meter.  If it's actually a metric meter but it's billed as Imperial, then the calculated kWh usage will be 2.83 times the correct value.

HLeung

[Deleted User] said:

I repeat what I posted earlier. Your online statements will have shown the reading that Octopus used to close your gas account. From then on, your bills would have shown electricity charges only. See for yourself by checking your old statements online via the Octopus App.

When you submit a manual reading it automatically produces a statement.

I appreciate that you feel hard done by but what is your actual material loss in £s? Can you show that jt is more than the £200 compensation that you have been offered? Forget BackBilling, the suppliers have done nothing wrong. They have acted in good faith on the instructions given to them.

If Octopus can demonstrate that it used the industry-validated reading to close your account then you might have a case to ask SSE to re-bill you to the correct start reading. As I said earlier, the reading provided by the agent is only part of the validation process:


https://help.so.energy/support/solutions/articles/7000046241-opening-reading-validation-process

Hello @[Deleted User], 
Thank you for the link. I am a little confused as it seems that my Actual reading at close with Octopus as shown in the last bill was 21st of May 2020 - 7521 (that's my final Actual reading) 

And SSE opens was much lower, 15th of July 2020 - 6677[E] 

As I was not present then and I was not the person submit the reading then, I was not able to dispute.

Octopus didn't seem to say that they agree with the reading submitted to them. 

As in my case, the Upper Reading with a higher number should be from the New Supplier but in my case, the old supplier Octopus has a higher reading than the New Supplier and the difference is more than 39 imperial gas units.