Utilita Energy

Knuzzle

I am failing to get my head around this one, I can only come up with the fact that Utilita are greedy.

I moved into my 1 bed flat on June 8th 2022.

The tenant before me had sadly passed away in March 2021 and the property was left empty in between those dates.

When I moved in the landlord presented me with 2 pay as you go Utilita cards one for gas, one for electricity. There was £2.20 in electricity in credit and £57 on the gas.

I started using these to top up.

Since June 8th last year I have been struggling to get Utilita to change my tenancy over and they only have just presented me with a Customer Reference number, almost a year from the date that I moved in. This is poor service.

The DWP Sent me a letter in November last year stating that to claim my warm home discount of £150 they need me to call them with a Customer Reference number, the cut off date was 28th February 2023.

Because of the failure of Utilita to provide me with a simple task we went passed the cut off date.

They now tell me that if I call the DWP with my Customer Reference number, the DWP will call Utilita and I will receive my £150 warm home discount into my pre-payment system as credit.

I awoke 3 days ago with a message on my smart meter display from Utilita to say that there is a debt on the account that they intend to claw back at the rate of £2.50p for every £10 that I top up by.

Okay, yes I admit, I used the credit left over by the previous now deceased tenant.

My Grievances are,

1. Will the DWP Honour this to Utilita if I tell them the delay I experienced at them giving me a new tenancy switchover and a new Customer reference number.

2. The amount of credit on my gas and electric has been used by me and Utilita have had their money for it courtesy of a dead tenant, if they claw it back through me, surely that means they are getting paid twice.

Your feedback is appreciated folks

Knuzzle (Gary)

Newcad

1 - I can't comment with anything useful, the DWP and utiltiy comapnies work in mysterious ways, particularly with this kind of thing.

The Warm Home Discount changed rules this year, so that's even more confused.

2 - I myself have just got a refund for credit that I had left on the pre-pay meter at my previous property.
That was my money and the company has rightly given it back to me.

So if you have used someone elses credit, dead or alive, and they (or their executors) have claimed it back then you will now have to pay for what you have used.

The company are not charging twice, they have refunded the credit that was on the previous account so you now have to pay for what you used,

poppy12345

You already admitted that you used the credit on the account, so yes you will need to repay back what wasn't rightfully yours. I don't believe they are "getting paid twice."

If you receive the WHD credited to your account then they can take what you owed them from this, rather then reduce your credit each time you add money to your key/card.

Spoonie_Turtle

You may be best placed to post on the energy board, as it seems a series of mistakes have inadvertently been made here - you should have set up your own account with Utilita and been sent your own prepayment keys to use, although I can see why you might not have thought to look into that since the landlord gave you keys. 

The landlord was liable for any energy charges in the time between the former tenant and you moving in.  Using someone else's key may appear to let you use their credit but it would also saddle you with any debt they may have had.