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

[Deleted User]

HLeung said:. 

Again I did not initiate the switch and by law it is illegal for the Letting Agent to switch my supplier without my consent.

Technically more an administrative mistake rather than an illegal act.

I will say it again. From what you have written, neither supplier has done anything wrong. They seem to have acted in good faith. You need proper advice from someone who has the time to look at all the supporting paperwork including your written complaints and Ombudsman submissions.

brock_the_badger

HLeung Due to the complexity if this case I would suggest that you get your local MP involved .

 In my experience of having to sort out my families  problems where various Utility providers refuse to listen to your problems and complaints I have found that contact from your MP's office usually concentrates their efforts to come to a  speedy resolution .

This is what they are paid for and considering their guaranteed pay rise just announced they bloody well should act on it ! 

HLeung

[Deleted User] said:

HLeung said:

[Deleted User] said:

HLeung said:

pochase said:

A gas reading is not in KWh, it in in m3 and if you are unlucky in ft3.

So the difference of 379 units, is 4245KWh (m3) or 12013KWh (ft3). Can you please check your meter if it says ft3 or m3 on it? Best you post a picture.

Is one of your problems maybe that you are thinking in KWh instead of m3 when you look at the two suppliers?

Also if your usage is really this low, the £200 will already cover most of the cost of your gas.

Aww got it. But what I really meant was I knew about the calculation based not the Octopus bill as it shows how this is calculated. 

So if I did the Maths correctly according to the formula provided by Octopus, the usage will be 11,943,51Kwh, for the last 14 months, which makes sense but what SSE annual estimate on the bill they sent me is 

" Your estimated annual usage 22,193.46kWh Your personal projection £2,657.72" 

You are confusing estimates with actual charges. Estimated use can be out for a number of reasons. It could impact your monthly DD payment but it will NOT change your actual bill for energy used. If the DD is set too high, you will just end up with an increasing credit balance.

Ofgem, the Regulator, requires suppliers to estimate future usage on every statement. What you pay is based solely on what amount of energy you use and the tariff that you are on.

I understand your point about annual estimated usage but if that was set too high that means I would have to pay upfront with a higher DD payment amount, and SSE will end up holding a larger credit balance, I understand that point 

Right now it is more important for SSE to accept that they have used the incorrect estimated opening figure and that subsequently over charge the entire period. 

Also they need to accept I did not receive any bills for 24 months. 

And KFH had to come up with a solution, more than just an apology and £200. After all they DID create the problem causing me to pay a high tariffs rate ( that was not what I chose) and going through unnecessary stress and losing time to deal with the complaints with SSE. 

I used the figure 11,943,51Kwh, for the last 14 months and calculate with the current tariffs what SSE ( which would be the highest out of the entire bill they charge me), for the last 12 month, the bill should come to approx £1240 for 12 month usage. 

But the entire bill SSE charging me is over £3000, for the 30 months they want to charge me. The real increase of tariffs only took place since Q4 2021, the tariffs before that point can't be more that the current tariffs. The entire bill was incorrect and inaccurate but SSE kept claiming they are correct to the ACTUAL readings? 

You are trying to make SSE ‘pay’ for a mistake that you have admitted was not of its making. I think that you have said that statements were being sent to your Letting Agent. What more could SSE do? It appears to have acted in good faith based on the switch request that it received.

Rather than continue with this endless exchange of posts, can I suggest that you make an appointment with a Citizen’s Advice Energy Advisor. Take all relevant paperwork with you. CA also has expertise in the Lettings area. It might be that you have a case against your Letting Agent - whether they wish to engage or not. CA can advise you whether it is worth pursing a claim via a Small Claims Court.

Thank you Dolor, I had already had a the initial advice from the energy adviser at the citizen advice and they did suggest me to pursue the back-billing regulation with SSE. 

 I did not admit that it's not their making, but rather, SSE did not hold any of my contact details before, and they never sent me any bills for 24 months, that's the fact, and if they had sent them to the Letting Agents, then the back-billing still stands as personally I did not receive them, and by the time I receive them, they were based on incorrect estimated readings. 

if they had received a switch request and their reading was rejected by Octopus, someone should be held responsible to decide to go ahead with an estimated figure that was not approved by the previous supplier? Am I missing something ? 

HLeung

Mstty said:

Also don't forget in the past 2 years they may have taken the plunge into products such as Octopus tracker as an example and saved even more. The fact you were stuck with SSE meant you missed out on such opportunities.

Unfortunately no, if I looked at the SSE bills correctly, the tariffs they had been using on their calculations were always more expensive, especially the most current reading, it is still more than what Octopus offers. 

HLeung

[Deleted User] said:

HLeung said:. 

Again I did not initiate the switch and by law it is illegal for the Letting Agent to switch my supplier without my consent.

Technically more an administrative mistake rather than an illegal act.

I will say it again. From what you have written, neither supplier has done anything wrong. They seem to have acted in good faith. You need proper advice from someone who has the time to look at all the supporting paperwork including your written complaints and Ombudsman submissions.

I will try citizen advise again and see what they say this time Now that I have filed the official complaints Thank you Dolor

HLeung

brock_the_badger said:

HLeung Due to the complexity if this case I would suggest that you get your local MP involved .

 In my experience of having to sort out my families  problems where various Utility providers refuse to listen to your problems and complaints I have found that contact from your MP's office usually concentrates their efforts to come to a  speedy resolution .

This is what they are paid for and considering their guaranteed pay rise just announced they bloody well should act on it ! 

yes, My next action also is to contact my local MP to get this resolved. Thank you for suggesting 

HLeung

Spoonie_Turtle said:

HLeung said:

MattMattMattUK said:

HLeung said:

MattMattMattUK said:

HLeung said:

Dolor said:

Putting to one side, the tenant/letting agent relationship, this surely is nothing more than an Erroneous Transfer (ET) of Supply which is covered in Licence Conditions - unless I have missed a key point?

The principle when reversing an ET is that the consumer should be put back into the position that he/she was in had they not been the victim of an ET.

Hello Dolor, 

I agree with you and I had also spoken to the citizen advice. However the letting agent admitted their error but reluctant to do get this resolved. They claimed it's over 2 years and that the account is in my name now and there's nothing more they could do. 

When you say the letting agent "but reluctant to get this resolved", in reality there is not a huge amount that they can do at this point, the billing needs to be worked out between you and SSE and then your gas supply either left where it is or changed over to Octopus again if that is what you want to do. The time to deal with an erroneous transfer is when it happens in that respect two years later there is almost certainly nothing that they can do.

HLeung said:

Their apologies and £200 goodwill simply isn't sufficient to compensate all the headaches, time and stress that I had to deal with for the problem they created

I can see it might be mildly annoying to get resolved, but it should not take a huge amount of time, nor cause headaches and stress. £200 seems fairly reasonable and you are unlikely to get more going by another route unless you can prove that you were taken off an Octopus fix and put onto a more expensive SVR and then you can calculate the exact losses over the relevant period and you can demonstrate that they are more than the £200, but then you could only get the actual cost, not any goodwill gesture.

You want to get this sorted, you can either do that in a reasonable way, or kick up a fuss whilst doing it. Kicking up a fuss whilst trying to get it sorted will not help and may even hinder the process. 

Hello MattMattMattUK,

yes I have checked with Octopus the tariffs I was at at the time of switch, I had compared the tariffs that SSE charges me in July 2020. There's marked difference, especially the daily standing charges, it was almost doubled with SSE. I had also gotten the most current tariffs for both suppliers, and the comparison shows SSE is still much higher than Octopus, had I stayed with Octopus under the same plan they would have offered me. When you add on the cumulative amount over a period of 30 months of continuous higher tariffs, the amount would have been more than £200 for certain. 

It may have been higher in July 2020, it could have been during 2021, however as it currently stands both SSE and Octopus have near identical gas costs as they are both offering a cap compliant SVR so there is something wrong with whatever you are looking at now. Also it will not matter if you were on an SVR with both, only if they took you off a fix with Octopus and moved you onto SVR or a higher rate tariff with SSE, any potential savings after the end of the Octopus fix would be ignored as otherwise you would have moved to SVR anyway and both offered the standard capped SVR. You need to calculate the amount based on the energy you used during the remainder if your Octopus fix, if you were on SVR then it is not relevant at all.

HLeung said:

I had been patient with KFH and since on 3 occasions in October 2022, that they had confirmed they would reverse gas supplier to Octopus for me and put everything back in order. I trusted them they would deliver, but obviously they failed their promise. 

Who are KFH, the letting agent? If so then it is not within their power to correct an erroneous transfer, the only person who could have done that is you, at the time it was initiated and when Octopus would have emailed you.

HLeung said:

As with SSE, they had admitted that they were sending bills to the letting agents, they knew they didn't have my details on their system before, and they knew they were using estimated readings for all their bills, and they also knew that Octopus did not approve their reading at the switch. 

The thing is if the switch was initiated, not challenged or cancelled and they have used the details requested then they have done nothing wrong in actioning the switch, there is nothing wrong with using estimated readings either, although they should have attempted to establish an actual read a lot of that got messed up due to Covid. I do not understand what you mean by "they also knew that Octopus did not approve their reading at the switch", Octopus do not need to approve it?

HLeung said:
I filed a formal complaint, presenting with facts and figures, point by point and they have no interest to address my points but continue demanding payments and claimed that they had revised the bills accurately according to ACTUAL readings.... and now suggesting me to make a payment plan and install a smart meter. 

The problem is they are acting correctly, you used gas, they billed the details that they were instructed to, you are required to pay for that gas usage and that should be based on actual readings which is what they are now doing so there is not a complaint there. A smart meter will not solve that issue but you might as well have one installed (removes the need to submit readings and potential future benefits). 

HLeung said:
None of these are resolving the issue. 

It is not clear what the "issue" you want resolving actually is? I understand that you did not transfer away from Octopus, but you could transfer back now. After two years it cannot be reversed, but there is not reason you cannot transfer back yourself. You used gas and need to pay for it so that cannot be the issue either. If you want to have your gas account with Octopus again all you need to do is transfer it back and pay the bill to SSE. Is there some misunderstanding as to what you feel the actual issue is?

Hello MattMattMattUK

Please understand that there is a substantial difference between the 2 suppliers with their tariffs and I did not and should not be paying for the higher tariffs for the duration of 30 months. Even if SSE is willing to use the last reading from Octopus and re calculated the entire bill based on their tariffs, the difference will definitely be more than £200. 

What are the actual tariff rates, per kWh and standing charge for each supplier?

I had consulted Octopus regarding the HISTORICAL tariffs that was charged on my gas account. The tariffs at the time before the switch ( MAY 2020) was:

Octopus Flexible Variable:         

Energy Used* kWh @ 3.30p/kWh

Standing Charge @ 16.00p/day ( according to the last gas bill )

SSE standard Evergreen:

Energy Used*kWh @ 3.62p/kWh

Standing Charge@ 29.31 p/day.  ( according to SSE bill I received) 

CURRENT TARIFFS ( as off 19th January based on my conversations with both suppliers) 

Octopus Flexible Variable:          

Energy Used*kWh @ 10.51p/kWh

Standing Charge  @ 26.08p/day

SSE standard Evergreen:

Energy Used*kWh @ 11.53p/kWh

Standing Charge@ 33.43p/day

these are the comparisons. 

The SSE bills also consists of their historical tariffs rates over the period, the tariffs only increase over the years and since their opening tariffs was already more than Octopus, especially the daily standing charges, the accumulated increase would be more than Octopus had I stayed with them.

pochase

Mstty said:

Also don't forget in the past 2 years they may have taken the plunge into products such as Octopus tracker as an example and saved even more. The fact you were stuck with SSE meant you missed out on such opportunities.

As OP believed he was with Octopus it is sure that he has not done this and never wanted to do it. Otherwise he would have learned much earlier that he is no longer with Octopus.

ariarnia

this is to much for me to dig through right now but wanted to add it might be worth checking if the letting agents are members of a regulated body or redress scheme (like here https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/private_renting/complaints_about_letting_agents) 

the housing part of the forum might be able to help you with that (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/house-buying-renting-selling) as its a complete;y differnt thing to your problems with your readings and bills. 

if you can prove that you are worse of on your current rates than you would be with your old supplier (you have to work out actually how much you are out of pocket) then you could try to claim that on top of some amount for the actual mistake/hastle of having to get this all sorted back out. 

HLeung

ariarnia said:

this is to much for me to dig through right now but wanted to add it might be worth checking if the letting agents are members of a regulated body or redress scheme (like here https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/private_renting/complaints_about_letting_agents) 

the housing part of the forum might be able to help you with that (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/house-buying-renting-selling) as its a complete;y differnt thing to your problems with your readings and bills. 

if you can prove that you are worse of on your current rates than you would be with your old supplier (you have to work out actually how much you are out of pocket) then you could try to claim that on top of some amount for the actual mistake/hastle of having to get this all sorted back out. 

Thank you Ariana, yes I have escalated the matter to the Property Ombudsman regarding the Letting agent as they are part of that redress scheme. However they said due to volume, it might be 30 to 35 days before I hear from them. 

I had done the preliminary calculation based on the rates I had gotten with Octopus and the rates that SSE posted on my bills. I have to go through period by period and see if I can match up the rates. Unfortunately even though octopus shows historical rates on their website, it's hard to identify the exact rates over the same period. Hence my best comparisons was the initial rates and the current rates , as shown the threads, there is a marked difference. And there will also be a cumulative increase over time when SSE initial rates are already higher, and their current rates are also higher than Octopus.