Debt Collection Email

FreeBear

Rtj123 said:

I had an email saying I owe £1600.
I rang them and a guy on the phone said they would email a bill after I asked them to prove it.
I also emailed them asking them for proof of debt?
over a month now and not heard a thing. What do I do?
when I left I didn’t receive anything final, all the proof I have is my direct debits each month.

What do you do - Nothing.

Until such time as they produce a valid bill, they have no "proof" that you owe anything. So leave the ball in their court, and do not chase.

JY614592

Received a similar letter to the tune of £2k.

I sent a prove it letter, they replied by sending me a shoddy photocopied invoice with 'estimated' figures which are completely arbitrary. 

Surely this wouldn't stand up in the court!

cpharvey

I'm glad I found this thread, I wasn't quite sure what to do about the letter I received from (Removed by Forum Team) at Barratt Smith and Brown. My supposed debt is somewhere north of £6600 and I've now sent a "Provit" letter via registered mail requiring a signature. I find it interesting that the email with attached PDF I received from them was one day shy of six years since I terminated my tenancy which included my contract with Together Energy.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for any further developments, but I do find it worrying that the company that had the worst record keeping now has the ability to reach out from the dead and chase people for fictitious debt.

FreeBear

cpharvey said: My supposed debt is somewhere north of £6600 and I've now sent a "Provit" letter via registered mail requiring a signature. I find it interesting that the email with attached PDF I received from them was one day shy of six years since I terminated my tenancy which included my contract with Together Energy.

What was the date on the final bill after you moved out ?

Once six years has passed, they would be out of time to pursue the matter through the courts (five if you are in Scotland).

cpharvey

I don't seem to be able to post responses. But for FreeBear, we moved out in June 29th 2018, and suspiciously this letter came June 28th 2023.

cpharvey

So it seems like it's quoted replies that don't work, rather than just posting. @FreeBear

If my math is right, that's 1 day short of 6 years, although we live in Hampshire.

QrizB

cpharvey said:

If my math is right, that's 1 day short of 6 years, although we live in Hampshire.

One day short of five years, surely?

FreeBear

cpharvey said:

I don't seem to be able to post responses. But for FreeBear, we moved out in June 29th 2018, and suspiciously this letter came June 28th 2023.

If my math is right, that's 1 day short of 6 years, although we live in Hampshire.

What counts is the date the final bill was issued by Together Energy. Typically, this would be within 14 days of you terminating the contract. On top of that, there would be a period to settle the bill before it became overdue (30 days is the norm). So BSB have approximately another six weeks plus one year to file a claim (depending on exact dates). And that assumes that they have the authority to initiate legal action (not all debt collectors do).

Oh, and the laws in Hampshire are the same as the rest of England

cpharvey

Yes I thought my math was not correct, and yes I realise Hampshire is part of England, but there was a reference to Scotland up above so I thought I'd clarify my anonymity.

I've sent a letter today with recorded delivery based off the PROVIT letters others have sent, essentially telling them to prove the debt or stop. I'm relatively certain based on a whole history with TE that this debt was incurred by the tenant that followed us into the rental property. Our rental ended June 29th 2018, I have the emails from Hamptons that show they used a moveout service (iammoving.com) to do final readings and when we moved into our new house I used Bulb for quite a long time. TE continued taking my from our DD for about a year before I noticed (yeah I know that sounds odd, but imagine I scan the bills and see energy, phone etc, so it seems right until one day I realised I was paying for a service I'd moved from). I tried to get TE to refund the money and they didn't ever respond so I had Natwest claw back the funds using DD indemnity. 

Even after all that I kept getting emails regarding bills at the old address even after they were acquired by British Gas (note I couldn't see the bills themselves, just notification of bills i.e. a form letter). Finally I managed to get hold of someone in BG who could see the problem, could see the termination, and said don't worry, ignore it. I had a feeling this wouldn't be the end of it but couldn't get anything in writing from BG either.

Since this amount is about six times the amount i clawed back, it's likely not that even with penalties. My suspicion is it's five years of energy at the new tenant who may have though energy was part of her rental.

Either way, the address they have and the address we have lived at since 2018 are different and they'll need to prove the dates the energy was supplied at before I'm doing anything. It's just extremely annoying that one companies messed up accounting is causing such chaos for many.

FreeBear

cpharvey said: It's just extremely annoying that one companies messed up accounting is causing such chaos for many.

There were/are other energy companies that appear to be unable to produce accurate (and comprehensible) bills - I'm still waiting for Toto the Clowns to provide a final bill after they went bust back in 2019. EDF have taken over the circus and have made a couple of attempts, but even they can't get the bill right (using imperial units for gas when it is a metric smart meter).