Debt Recovery Email Barrett Smith & Brown (Together Energy Administration)

becks171

Looking for some advice. 

In Dec 2019 I was switched by Look After My Bills to Together Energy from Octopus, after reading the bad reviews of Together I quickly requested to cancel the switch. However, later realised that only my electricity supply had been switched back, not my gas. I contacted Octopus in March 2021 to rectify this to ensure I didn't receive bills from Together Energy and they told me the following:

Just to get this sorted for you, though, I've put through what's called an erroneous transfer to get your gas supply back with ourselves. This will essentially switch you back to us, and mean that your bill with the other supplier will get wiped and transferred as a charge over to ourselves: it basically makes it so that you technically never left our supply.

It would be worth getting in touch with Together Energy and letting them know that an ET has been initiated, as you weren't supposed to have switched at all, so you won't be paying that bill!

However, today I've received an email from Barrett Smith & Brown regarding an outstanding debt of £700+ from Together Energy. I'm unsure whether this bill was ever paid to Octopus instead or not, as it's so long ago and I'm no longer with them. I'm not sure how to proceed!

Gerry1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6448182/debt-collection-email

pochase

Your situation is a bit different from the one in the link Gery1 posted.

If I undertsand correctly you were switched to Together and Octopus was trying to get the switch removed.  They told you will not need to pay to together,



Also the statement you don't have to pay the bill to together does not mean you don't have to pay the eenrgy at all. If you would have switched back to Octopus they would have billed instead of Together, there is no free energy.

You need to check if you were billed by Ocotopus for the energy used and paid for it.

You should still read the other thread and send a prove it letter.

brewerdave

There was (is) a Together Energy customer support group on Facebook, run by ex customers. It has been quiet for a few months but has literally exploded into life in the last two days as BSB appear to have set off on an email fishing expedition !!

Julesanne

I’ve received an email from Barrett Smith & Brown on 23/05/23- I am already paying £10 per month to TE administrators so I’m unsure whether this is legit- they are requesting the total amount of my final bill - however this is not the amount outstanding as I reduced it through my monthly £10 payments - I requested paper format communication- the advisor said it’s email only- I requested the information they are supposedly requesting & supporting documents along with the administrator’s updated information- the advisor said email only communication & sent their bank account number- I still have numerous email complaints I sent to TE & wondering why BSB  can’t present their information to support their request for cancelling my DD to Together energy administrators & reset one with BSB - very confusing to say the least & very frustrating to still be discussing TE & all it’s failures for us as customers this far down the line- 

MariaSaal

I have also received an email from BSB regarding outstanding debt. I believe all my bills were paid by DD. I have been a pensioner for many years and struggling with my current bills this is frightening to get an email of an outstanding debt several years ago, I don’t believe it or how I can prove I don’t owe it what can I do? Ignore it?

[Deleted User]

MariaSaal said:

I have also received an email from BSB regarding outstanding debt. I believe all my bills were paid by DD. I have been a pensioner for many years and struggling with my current bills this is frightening to get an email of an outstanding debt several years ago, I don’t believe it or how I can prove I don’t owe it what can I do? Ignore it?

Welcome to the forum. Might I suggest that you make an appointment to meet with a Citizens’ Advice Energy Adviser. If possible, take all your old energy bills with you. In Law, all companies can pursue a debt for up to 6 years in England so it is best not to ignore it in the hope that the problem will go away.

QrizB

MariaSaal said:

I have also received an email from BSB regarding outstanding debt. I believe all my bills were paid by DD. I have been a pensioner for many years and struggling with my current bills this is frightening to get an email of an outstanding debt several years ago, I don’t believe it or how I can prove I don’t owe it what can I do? Ignore it?

If you want to, you can send them a "prove it" letter (there's a template on the Debt-Free forum). This doesn't admit any liability but asks them for full details of what they believe you owe.

If they're serious about chasing a supposed debt, they will write to you. On paper, via the post.

brewerdave

There has been an explosion of posts on a Facebook group originally set up as a Together Energy customer support group when they were trading. Literally 100s of people are being chased by BSB for supposed debts going back as far as 2017. Many of these have tried to obtain evidence of the supposed debts with little or no success and some are now being threatened that ,if they don't settle these "debts" in 72 hours, then they debts may be passed to their legal team!  The vast majority of these communications have been via email.
Some of the posters have plenty of evidence to show that they don't owe anything, so it'll be "interesting" to see if anyone is actually taken to Court!!

frankly12

Just received the same message from BSB about an outstanding debt to Together Energy for over £500. I supplied Stacey at BSB with a great deal of evidence in May of this year to show that I don’t owe them anything. In fact, TE probably owe me around £10 but I wrote that off long ago. Apparently, Stacey left the company and it was never passed on to anyone else so another person is now dealing with it. In an objectionable tone, he told me I’d have to send it all over again because he couldn’t access Stacey’s emails.  I did that immediately and requested receipt of the emails. No response and I’ve just received a text message again demanding money to settle the account. 

It’s massively frustrating to have had to deal with the nightmare that was TE (left in December 2020 before I had a nervous breakdown) and now what appears to be an equally incompetent company dealing with the ‘debt’ collection. 

I have masses of evidence to show I don’t owe anything, but my worry is that BSB will put me (and it sounds like any number of others) on list that will affect our credit. They don’t seem interested in dealing with my case professionally and rising rough shod over people. 

On another note, like some others on this thread, I was put with TE by Lookaftermybills and I rue the day I signed up with them! I contacted them at the time of dealing with TE and they fixed me off completely. They accept NO responsibility for the mess they created for customers. 

AuxeyDuresses

Having the same problem as Frankly12 - BSB have been chasing me for upwards of a year for a final bill paid nearly a year ago.  I have now lodged a formal complaint to the TE administrator, FRP Advisory.. If you go to their contact page there is a dedicated link for TE customers.  They got back to me quickly and are taking steps to resolve the issue.  Hope this helps.  I also recommend you read the Trustpilot reviews for BSB - pretty damning!