Debt Recovery - "Partially settled but with a zero balance" offer. What to do?

DavidJones2023

Some advice please folks.

I started receiving letters from LCSDR chasing over unpaid Gas to E.ON

I've never been an Eon customer but the last owner of this house was.

I was getting letters from E.ON just after we moved in addressed to the occupier asking for follow-on address for the previous owners which I just ignored because it's none of my business and I'm busy.

I moved my Gas and Electric over from my previous address with my British Gas account and used the same readings as the previous owner that was agreed with the previous owner on move-in day. Never thought any more about it, always paid my Bills etc.

I generally don't open mail addressed to The Occupier and especially not if it's got another energy company header on the envelope, because it's usually just boiler cover and unobtainable free insulation schemes.

Anyway long story short, I start looking into these Debt Recover letters and I start checking my details with British Gas the usual hours on the phone been passed between "the new billing system" people and "the old billing system" people only to find that they have different start dates with Gas and Electric and then i find an email lost in my inbox from British gas from the month after my address change saying they'd failed to move my Gas over and they were going to do it a month later than expected.

So I probably did accidentally dodge paying a month of Gas bill without realizing it; So fair enough I'll pay the bill.

But, in the mean-time this LCSDR sends me a "Settlement offer", still addressed to "The Legal Occupier", of 30% off the initial amount. and it says 

"If you make a one off payment of $$ this will fully settle your account. This offer will expire when etc etc... if you decide to make the payment as a settlement, our client will register this as being "partially settled but with a zero balance" with the credit reference agency.

Obviously i want to avoid any bad credit over this nonsense and i have now had time to work out what's happened and that ok I'll pay for it.

How do I avoid a Bad credit rating? conscious that as soon as I pay this bill it will be attached to my name rather than "The Legal Owner"

MorningcoffeeIV

DavidJones2023 said:

How do I avoid a Bad credit rating? conscious that as soon as I pay this bill it will be attached to my name rather than "The Legal Owner"

Unlikely, by the sounds of it, if an account is not set up in your name and they're not currently reporting to the CRAs.

What options do they give you for paying? A card payment online would close the matter off. 

DavidJones2023

MorningcoffeeIV said:

DavidJones2023 said:

How do I avoid a Bad credit rating? conscious that as soon as I pay this bill it will be attached to my name rather than "The Legal Owner"

Unlikely, by the sounds of it, if an account is not set up in your name and they're not currently reporting to the CRAs.

What options do they give you for paying? A card payment online would close the matter off. 

Cheers for the quick response

Yeah, all options really i.e. Online, Paypoint, Bank transfer, Check/Postal order (answers on a postcard

Nebulous2

It might be worth posting on the energy forum, but you cannot move a contract over to a new address. The process, which seems to catch a lot of people out, is that on moving you have a 'deemed contract' with the previous supplier. You need to register with them first, and then transfer to whoever you want.