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

[Deleted User]

HLeung said:

[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. 

Unless your name is on the energy account, then you owe SSE nothing. SSE wouldn't divulge the name of the account holder to you under GDPR. Why do you now believe that you owe SSE for the energy consumed? Is this something that the letting agent is now telling you? 

FWiW, if you now think that you are the SSE account holder you have gone to The Ombudsman too soon. You should have issued a Subject Access Report request against SSE to find out when the account was put into your name. The Ombudsman can only respond to the information that you and the supplier provide when judging your case.

pochase

I don't think that SSE or Octopus are much at fault here.

@HLeung have you checked if Octopus has send you an email "Sorry to see you leave"? Also there will be no final bill, but there should have been a bill where the gas was closed down?

If so Octopus has done everything correct, they have informed you about the switch, and send you a "final bill", even it it did not say so because you kept the electricity going.

SSE also did nothing wrong, they received a switch request for your meter number from the letting agent, and you did not complaint, so it went through. If this was supposed to be for another meter (maybe an empty flat) it would be normal if they did give their details and received therefore the bills. No idea why they did not react to the increasing amount and investigated, but that is a different story, and it is with the agent not SSE.

You did not check for nearly two years your bills, and you did not even find it strange that everybody's energy cost went up big time, while yours stayed the same. You will have to take some blame for that.

Anyway, SSE has done the billing, no fault of theirs if they have been given wrong account holder details, so back billing will not apply. 

That Octopus believes the final read is wrong does not matter. The way it works is that there is a industry body that sets the final read during a switch. this final read does not need to be correct, for gas it can be up to 1200KWh "wrong"

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2018/10/rec_v2.0_-_switch_meter_reading_exceptions.pdf

The important part is that Octopus used the meter reading they have been given for their final bill, same as SSE as start. If they both used the same reading, you have not lost out here.

As @MattMattMattUK wrote there should not be a difference for the last year in the unit rates. Are this the real rates for your account or did you collect them somewhere on the net?

Even if there would be 1p difference, the £200 your agent offered would cover the difference for 20000KWh of gas, how much did you really use during this time?

Also when you ares saying the meter read Octopus received was much lower than it should be, they will have refunded to you overpaid money in the "final bill" or lets call it "closing bill". Have you found an downloaded this bill? What is the refund you received?

What you can expect to happen is 

- closing bill and opening bill use the same reading (what is the reading)
- Octopus credited the "overpaid" gas units (how much?)
- SSE bills to the current reading (what is the reading?)

Main problem would be that SSE will have estimated your readings at the tariff changes when there was a cap change to the SVT. That could work to your disadvantage. Do you still have a proof of the readings you submitted to Octopus?

Otherwise the suppliers are not at fault, it will be the agent, and even the agent just has made a mistake, you also need to take responsibility for not keeping track of your account.. You will need to bring proof what exactly your loss was, which would be higher rates and you will need to proof this. I honestly don't think that you will be able to proof more than the £200 that was already offered to you.

Brie

Not sure if the OP has done so but if not I would suggest submitting subject access requests to both energy providers and the letting agents.  That way a complete record of what has happened might be put together.  From what I've read (not everything admittedly) there seems to be a lot of supposition when facts are needed.

But I do also agree with others - if the OP had checked the Octopus bills more closely then the issue of not being charged for gas would have been noticed much much sooner.

[Deleted User]

Brie said:

Not sure if the OP has done so but if not I would suggest submitting subject access requests to both energy providers and the letting agents.  That way a complete record of what has happened might be put together.  From what I've read (not everything admittedly) there seems to be a lot of supposition when facts are needed.

But I do also agree with others - if the OP had checked the Octopus bills more closely then the issue of not being charged for gas would have been noticed much much sooner.

Sadly, it is all too late as the OP has already taken the matter to EOS and The Property Ombudsman. Scattergun tactics are rarely successful in my experience. 

HLeung

Octopus did not send a closing bill because I still have my electricity account with them. They had my final actual reading but that's not submitted by the Letting Agent. Instead an estimated reading was used by SSE which is much lower than the Actual Octopus held..

Octopus did not credit my overpaid, as all my overpaid ended up funding the increase of the electricity account, and by the time I contacted Octopus in Jul2022, the account is only a few hundred pounds in credit, they suggested to bring down my credit balance by stopping the direct debit temporary and I agreed. 

I submitted my Actual to SSE on 18th Jan 2023, the reading was 8442 on the meter. 

SSE billed me up to DEC 2022 using Estimated reading of 8384[E] as the last reading. 


SSE' opening reading was 6677[E]
Octopus Actual closing was 7521 


Octopus had sent me an email to confirm that indeed I was unlikely to be aware of the switch for the fact that they had a record of my Actual reading submissions on their system over the course of 2020 end of 2021 and they also confirmed that they did not send out a final bill to me because I had my electricity account with them and that I was allowed to input and submit my gas readings even my gas account was not with them. 

pochase

Has Octopus used the 6677 from SSE to calculate your the closing of the gas account?

I am not talking about credits from your DD, I am talking if Octopus billed you for your usage up to 7521ft3, and than they got the 6677 reading from SSE they should have credited you for the 26750KWh difference.

Have you downloaded you Octopus bills and checked what they have done after the switch?

As @[Deleted User] wrote you will have a problem with your complaints if you did not submit the data to the Ombudsman, they will decide from the data you send them and will not investigate themselves. 

If Octopus and SSE really used readings that differ by 27000KWh that would be a very valid complaint. Have you submitted this information to the EOS, and were you able to proof it? Opening bill SSE and closing bill Octopus.

EssexHebridean

I think you are misunderstanding - I wasn’t asking about the final bill - I was asking about the contact that is made by the outgoing energy company when a switch is instigated. The whole purpose of that contact is to try to prevent erroneous transfers (and, naturally, to have a last crack at retaining a customer where the switch has been requested) by giving the customer time to stop it from happening… there will have been contact from Octopus when the switch was requested. 

I am also surprised that you considered that in a time of literal energy crisis, it was likely that your dual fuel account would have been sufficiently in credit to mean actually stopping the DD. Did this really not strike you as at all strange? Most people have seen energy bills increase by at least 100% over the period in question. 

[Deleted User]

HLeung said:

Octopus did not send a closing bill because I still have my electricity account with them. They had my final actual reading but that's not submitted by the Letting Agent. Instead an estimated reading was used by SSE which is much lower than the Actual Octopus held..

Octopus did not credit my overpaid, as all my overpaid ended up funding the increase of the electricity account, and by the time I contacted Octopus in Jul2022, the account is only a few hundred pounds in credit, they suggested to bring down my credit balance by stopping the direct debit temporary and I agreed. 

I submitted my Actual to SSE on 18th Jan 2023, the reading was 8442 on the meter. 

SSE billed me up to DEC 2022 using Estimated reading of 8384[E] as the last reading. 


SSE' opening reading was 6677[E]
Octopus Actual closing was 7521 


Octopus had sent me an email to confirm that indeed I was unlikely to be aware of the switch for the fact that they had a record of my Actual reading submissions on their system over the course of 2020 end of 2021 and they also confirmed that they did not send out a final bill to me because I had my electricity account with them and that I was allowed to input and submit my gas readings even my gas account was not with them. 

If you look closely at your Octopus Energy statement it will show that a CLOSING reading was used for billing when your account was switched to SSE. Octopus is also one of the better suppliers when it comes to sending a ‘Sorry you are leaving email’ when it has been notified by a new supplier that a switch is in progress.

SwanJon

Agree with others - there's at least a little bit of fault for everyone here.

Letting agents
Probably a typo in asking for your property to be switched
Not responding to SSE' emails for about two years
Not contacting you themselves once they realised what had happened

SSE
Not making a greater effort to chase a balance for about two years- I'm surprised a paper letter to the supply address wasn't issued sooner - even if not in your name.

Octopus
Accepting readings for a meter point they don't supply - I can see why that would be confusing.
Maybe not being clear enough that they were stopping to supply your gas. Although if this was on one of the statements you didn't read....

You
Not checking your Octopus bills to see of they are correct (e.g. meter fault, wrong reading).
Knowingly and deliberately not paying anyone for gas used since July 2022 - unless you have been paying someone since you found out and not mentioned it. You should have at least paid for your use since then in the meantime.

The root cause is the letting agents and they've offered a not insubstantial amount for their error,  but as you didn't notice this for two years, too much time has passed for the usual 'pretend it never happened' fixes at the supplier end.

I also think letting this drag on for 8 further months may have blocked one of the solutions suggested (switching back to Octopus) as SSE can block transfers if any debt is over 28 days old. (Not saying they will but I think it would take human intervention for them not to object now.)

As others have said, this doesn't fall under back billing as SSE were sending bills where they were asked to, but if they were in the wrong they might use it to help judge any goodwill gestures (but refusal to pay once you knew who to pay means you may not have any goodwill).

My advice would be take the money from the agent, make an agreement with SSE to pay for what you have used and continue to use. this is likely to be spread over at least 12 months ('as long as it took to build up' is a usual starting point). Then, if there is any credit it can be used to offset this, but you have show willing to compromise.
Then switch to your preferred supplier.

[Deleted User]

The switch reading validation process is managed by the gaining supplier as the diagram below shows (just follow the arrows): 

The gaining supplier’s data collector/metering agent produces a switch reading based on the reading from the consumer (if one is provided) and past validated meter readings. If the switch reading differs from the one that the consumer provided it will be annotated with an ‘E’. The switch reading is sent via an industry data flow to both suppliers to open and close accounts. The two suppliers have 2 options: one, they accept the opening/closing reading or they raise an Agreed Readings Dispute (subject to certain constraints).