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

EssexHebridean

There are a couple of things I am scratching my head over, here.

first - apologies if I have missed it but I can’t recall seeing the question around the “transfer requested, sorry to see you go” email from Octopus answered. Back in 2020 switches were taking several weeks so there would have been a fair bit of time for you to see the email, contact Octopus and tell them you had not requested the switch? I’m not clear on why you didn’t do this?

Also, allowing that you believed you were still paying Octopus for your gas use, that would have lead to a substantial credit building up in your account with them. As the past couple of years have been a period of very well publicised ever increasing energy prices, you presumably cannot have imagined that you were somehow “out on a limb” in actually seeing your bills fall - did the build up of credit, or indeed the possibly lowering of your DD (probably both) not present any red flags? At the very least you should be able to remove the credit from Octopus to pay across to SSE, even if it doesn’t quite cover your billed use from them. 

MWT

HLeung said:

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.

What is the name of the Octopus tariff that you were on at the point when the switch occurred?

Tariff rates have increased significantly for all providers over the last 2 years, but if you were on a fix with Octopus then you will potentially have a good claim for compensation, but if you were on their capped variable tariff then there is unlikely to be any material difference between that and the SSE rates....

MattMattMattUK

HLeung said:

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

Those tariffs do not make sense, SSE so not charge that rate according to their own tariff information, their current rate is within 0.02p per kWh in every region I can check and their standing charge is in some regions up to 1p more and in other regions up to 1p less. When it comes to historical SVR they were almost identical as well, within £25 based on example usage figure.

HLeung said:

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) 

I cannot make those rates line up either, you need to compare them in the same month, not one from April and another from August as an example.

HLeung said:

Had I stayed with Octopus, my current tariffs would be lower than SSE, I have check the tariffs with Octopus, and they said if I had stayed on with them, the current tariffs they would offer me would be

You are at most arguing about fractions of pence and when it comes to EPG rates they would be less than that.

HLeung said:

In order to transfer back to Octopus, I have to clear the bill, which now amounts to over £3k which is based on estimated inaccurate opening readings, plus it is based on a tariffs unfavourable and more than what I would have paid for with Octopus. 

How inaccurate was the opening reading and was it lower or higher than it should have been? Also as that was the closing reading with Octopus it makes little difference. The tariff rates are nowhere near as big as you seem to think they are either. The reality is that you owe £3k for gas you have used, if your account had stayed with Octopus it might have been £2.9k, or it might have still been £3k, but it would not have been £0 or even less than £2.5k. You are going to have to pay the bill, there is no way out of that.

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.

You might not have initiated the switch, but it is not illegal either. It was an erroneous transfer, you missed the email from Octopus telling you that you were leaving, you missed for more than two years that Octopus were not billing you for gas. I understand that you did not initiate the transfer but you do bare significant culpability for missing this for more than two years, if you had picked this up within the transfer period, or even within a few months it would have been very simple to resolve, but you chose to ignore your energy bills for two years and that is why you are where you are.

[Deleted User]

The OP is fighting this on too many fronts and unless he marshals his thoughts into some form of coherent complaint that organisations can address: he will lose. As others have suggested this could easily have been resolved had the OP been monitoring his energy account.

I cannot see that an MP would have a clue how to deal with this matter! The CA Advisor seems to be similarly confused. I would ask that it be referred to the CA Extra Help Unit that has direct access to supplier senior management teams. That said, I cannot see from the information provided that either supplier has done anything wrong.

The risk of going to an Ombudsman without all the facts is that they will find in favour of the supplier or letting agent. At this point, the complainant can either accept the Decision or reject it. Rejection means that the bill still stands and the supplier can use the Ombudsman Decision to support a claim in Court.

MattMattMattUK

[Deleted User] said:

The OP is fighting this on too many fronts and unless he marshals his thoughts into some form of coherent complaint that organisations can address: he will lose. As others have suggested this could easily have been resolved had the OP been monitoring his energy account.

I cannot see that an MP would have a clue how to deal with this matter! The CA Advisor seems to be similarly confused. I would ask that it be referred to the CA Extra Help Unit that has direct access to supplier senior management teams. That said, I cannot see from the information provided that either supplier has done anything wrong.

The risk of going to an Ombudsman without all the facts is that they will find in favour of the supplier or letting agent. At this point, the complainant can either accept the Decision or reject it. Rejection means that the bill still stands and the supplier can use the Ombudsman Decision to support a claim in Court.

It seems that the OP is under the illusion that if they kick up enough fuss for long enough the bill for £3k of gas that they have used will be waived. I also cannot see the Ombudsman getting involved, it is an erroneous transfer, both the energy providers have acted correctly. 

There is a potential civil dispute with the letting agent, but having had a look at the applicable rates, based on the fact that the OP was on Octopus SVR and remained on SVR and their inaction and not monitoring their accounts indicates that they would have stayed on SVR, the difference in their energy cost between the two would have been marginal at best. A very basic calculation working backwards from their £3k of gas figure indicates that they might have saved a maximum of £80 if they had stayed with Octopus but it is region dependant and the costs could have been the same. They have already been offered £200 so it would appear that is more than reasonable and I really cannot see a judge awarding more, even if there was a legal case worth entertaining.

[Deleted User]

SSE never sent me any bill for 24 months. I never received any bill from SSE until the first bill arrived out of the blue in July 2022. 6. Soon after I received the first bill, I contacted SSE on 12th July to follow up the first bill that landed through the post. At that point, I was shocked and confused. As far as I knew, my gas supply was with Octopus!!! 7. Upon the first phone call with SSE, as I discovered that SSE did not even know who I was when I called, as they did not have my details on their system. They did not even have my full name, email address, nor phone numbers. 2. SSE claimed that they had been sending me their bills electronically but I told them that’s not possible since SSE did not even have any of my details on their system. SSE subsequently admitted that they had been sending the bills to the Letting Agent.

This is where the mistake occurred. If the Letting Agent’s name and address were on the statements for 2 years then is what the OP should be concentrating on in my opinion. If the Tenancy Agreement does not have provision for the Letting Agent to recover these charges from the tenant then, logically, the Letting Agent should pay for the energy used. If statements have been sent out - albeit to the wrong address - then BackBilling most definitely does not apply. Why should a supplier rescind charges when it hasn’t actually made a mistake?

Qn: Why does the OP now believe that he is liable for these charges? Has the account name now been changed: if so, when? 

Robin9

HLeung said:

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. 

 A bit of a side but isn't that a bit of a reflection on the letting industry ?

tightauldgit

Wow that's a long old post. Trying to distil it down...

You were erroneously switched and your agent is responsible for that. That being the case it feels like any compensation or recovery of losses should be against them. It looks like the energy suppliers were just acting on the information they were provided. 

However you would have been informed of the switch at the time and really should have noticed in the past 2 years that you weren't paying a gas bill. So you really have to accept some responsibility for that and the fact this has dragged on so long

SSE have been trying to bill you for your gas usage but didn't have the proper details for you. I don't see that they've done much wrong here. I'm not sure this will constitute back-billing to be honest. I believe backbilling is there to prevent an error from the suppliers coming back to bite the consumer but this isn't an error as far as I can see. The only thing that seems to be up for debate is an incorrect initial meter reading. 

SSE don't seem to have been very helpful to you but I do think that you are going to have to pay your gas bill for what you actually used and probably at the prevailing rates at the time with maybe a little goodwill gesture towards you for the inconvenience.

You seem to be misleading yourself that the Octopus rates were much cheaper than SSE rates and it may have been that you were on a good deal with Octopus in 2021 - but that rate would not have continued in perpetuity unless you were on some unusual very long term fix. In any case, the fact that you were moved from Octopus is not the fault of SSE and you can't expect SSE to bill you at the rates Octopus were charging you 2 years ago. 

If you can demonstrate and document that the erroneous transfer HAS left you out of pocket then I think you would need to pursue a civil case against the agents who did it to recover that but I also expect that any award would be reduced based on the fact that you haven't exercised reasonable care in rectifying the situation and minimising your losses. 

It all seems a bit of a mess and it looks like the kind of thing that could go either way. I would pursue it with SSE and the ombudsman and see what they say and if that doesn't work then try a claim against the agent for any genuine losses you incurred.  

HLeung

[Deleted User] said:

SSE never sent me any bill for 24 months. I never received any bill from SSE until the first bill arrived out of the blue in July 2022. 6. Soon after I received the first bill, I contacted SSE on 12th July to follow up the first bill that landed through the post. At that point, I was shocked and confused. As far as I knew, my gas supply was with Octopus!!! 7. Upon the first phone call with SSE, as I discovered that SSE did not even know who I was when I called, as they did not have my details on their system. They did not even have my full name, email address, nor phone numbers. 2. SSE claimed that they had been sending me their bills electronically but I told them that’s not possible since SSE did not even have any of my details on their system. SSE subsequently admitted that they had been sending the bills to the Letting Agent.

This is where the mistake occurred. If the Letting Agent’s name and address were on the statements for 2 years then is what the OP should be concentrating on in my opinion. If the Tenancy Agreement does not have provision for the Letting Agent to recover these charges from the tenant then, logically, the Letting Agent should pay for the energy used. If statements have been sent out - albeit to the wrong address - then BackBilling most definitely does not apply. Why should a supplier rescind charges when it hasn’t actually made a mistake?

Qn: Why does the OP now believe that he is liable for these charges? Has the account name now been changed: if so, when? 

Hello Dolor, 

Just to reiterate, I did not receive any bills through the post for 24 months. When I first called SSE in July2022, they did not have any of my contact details on their system, nor did they even know my full name. They did not claim that they were sending bills to any particular person at that time but rather said they had been sending the bills electronically. SSE couldn't provide me who and which email address they were sending to. Certainly not mine

Only recently after the complaints, SSE now said that they had been sending the previous bills to the Letting agent. 

I have no idea when the account name was changed to me, assuming when I received the first bill which was July2022. Upon that phone call, and since I had then provided my contact details, it's only then the account was fully under my name. Before that point, they had none of my contact information, apart my last name, and then obviously my address, so that I received the first bill. 

HLeung

tightauldgit said:

Wow that's a long old post. Trying to distil it down...

You were erroneously switched and your agent is responsible for that. That being the case it feels like any compensation or recovery of losses should be against them. It looks like the energy suppliers were just acting on the information they were provided. 

However you would have been informed of the switch at the time and really should have noticed in the past 2 years that you weren't paying a gas bill. So you really have to accept some responsibility for that and the fact this has dragged on so long

SSE have been trying to bill you for your gas usage but didn't have the proper details for you. I don't see that they've done much wrong here. I'm not sure this will constitute back-billing to be honest. I believe backbilling is there to prevent an error from the suppliers coming back to bite the consumer but this isn't an error as far as I can see. The only thing that seems to be up for debate is an incorrect initial meter reading. 

SSE don't seem to have been very helpful to you but I do think that you are going to have to pay your gas bill for what you actually used and probably at the prevailing rates at the time with maybe a little goodwill gesture towards you for the inconvenience.

You seem to be misleading yourself that the Octopus rates were much cheaper than SSE rates and it may have been that you were on a good deal with Octopus in 2021 - but that rate would not have continued in perpetuity unless you were on some unusual very long term fix. In any case, the fact that you were moved from Octopus is not the fault of SSE and you can't expect SSE to bill you at the rates Octopus were charging you 2 years ago. 

If you can demonstrate and document that the erroneous transfer HAS left you out of pocket then I think you would need to pursue a civil case against the agents who did it to recover that but I also expect that any award would be reduced based on the fact that you haven't exercised reasonable care in rectifying the situation and minimising your losses. 

It all seems a bit of a mess and it looks like the kind of thing that could go either way. I would pursue it with SSE and the ombudsman and see what they say and if that doesn't work then try a claim against the agent for any genuine losses you incurred.  

Hello tightauldgit

thank you for your response. I do accept responsibility and yes in hindsight I should not have been complacent to let my account with octopus run without interfering, as I had a very smooth 2 year prior with octopus, it had left me complacent, and since I never received any notification from anyone, life got busy and I just left it run as it is always in credit. 

SSE have only been trying to bill me since July 2022, that out of the blue they decide to send the bill to me, when before they were sent to a different address and different person, presumably would be the letting agent, as SSE claimed later. Back-billing states that if the consumer were sent any incorrect bills for over 12 month period, then the consumer is protected to be liable for payment not more than 12 months. 

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/ofgem-bans-suppliers-backbilling-customers-beyond-12-months

The letting agent had already admitted their mistakes of the erroneous transfer. The fact that I had no visibility to how SSE was charging me over 24 months and I had not able to choose direct debit over the period, it had now made it very difficult for me to come up with a large sum of money to pay off such large bill all at once. When I was with Octopus, every thing was under control and at least I had received a monthly email from Octopus to remind me of my account balance which shows in credit and a reminder from Octopus to submit meter readings, which I did. 

With the letting agent I had to chase up for response continuously to move forward with their investigation, and they even confirmed in October that they would be able to put my account back in order to octopus to the tariffs that would have been offered to me had I not moved away from Octopus. I had been patient with them since they knew and admitted they create the problem and they offered to put it right, but by Jan 23, they decided that nothing else they could do. 

With SSE, I had also raised a complaint with them that they now claimed they were sending me bills prior to July2020. Even though they knew they were sending the bills to someone else and later on claimed to be the letting agent. They now claimed that back billing doesn't apply because they had been sending accurate bills, based on the actual readings. But effectively , the opening readings is still a wrong estimated reading, and not the Actual from Octopus. Through the complaint emails exchange they did not address any of the points I raised. It becomes impossible to communicate with them. 

I do hope the ombudsman will shed some light and I will continue to go down the route of claiming compensation from the Letting agent who after all created this problem.