Together Energy / Barratt Smith And Brown

jon_1827

I'm being chased by Barratt Smith and Brown to pay a £2k debt to Together Energy.

This all started back at the start of 2021. Together Energy hadn't billed me for some time (in excess of a year I believe) and I noticed that they had swapped my day and night meter readings around since the account was opened in 2017 - I have an Economy 10 meter. I asked for them to correct the billing error and issue a corrected bill.

Things went downhill from there. Whilst they acknowledged the billing was wrong and that they needed to correct it they didn't. They seldom replied to contact from me and did nothing to resolve the issues. When they did issue new bills, rather than resolving the issue they somehow managed to make the billing discrepancy even worse.

I messaged the CEO on LinkedIn, they said they would sort it. Nothing changed. I raised a complaint with the ombudsman, again they acknowledged they were in the wrong, that the bills were incorrect and needed to be re-issued. Then they went bankrupt before doing anything about it.

Barratt Smith and Brown are now chasing the debt. Each time they contact me I explain the account is in dispute, that Together Energy have acknowledged the bill is wrong and needs to be corrected. They just ignore me and then issue another demand.

I suspect with corrected billing I wouldn't owe them much if anything.

Any suggestions for how I get this nightmare to end?

Jyana

I hope you have not admitted to BS&B that you may owe anything yet, that is the important thing. Never tell a debt collector the debt they are chasing is legit, even if it is.

Have you asked them for a Prove It letter yet? That is the first step, and they will very likely not be able to prove you owe the money, especially as Together Energy were unable to all this time. You can find the template on how to word the letter on the Debt Free section the board here. Don't embellish or deviate from the standard letter, however tempting, it's set out in a certain way for a reason.

This may be of help too, and there are plenty of other customers in the same boat if you do a search through the forum here or look through some of the newspapers online.

brewerdave

Also a very lively group on Facebook ,full of similar stories to yours
(2) together energy customer support group | Facebook

Amongst a big group of very poorly performing former utility suppliers, Together Energy appear to be just about the worst - some poor soul was being chased for over £11k when they have never actually been a customer !!

6659

Just had a demand from BS&B for the administrators of TE for £162 
I left TE 3yrs ago because their service was awful, even went to Ofgem complaints to get things sorted, left them and went for MSE recommendation, Avro Energy, unfortunately they went bust, I am now with Octopus Energy.
I had final billing from TE to go to Avro and thought that was that, I understand from Ofgen that energy companies cannot back charge after a year? As this demand is way past that can they enforce it? All two contacts has been via emails and I haven’t replied, I have blocked them future  access to get a written statement from them.
Anybody else having similar problems?

QrizB

6659 said:

Just had a demand from BS&B for the administrators of TE for £162

Do you think you owe them any money? Some of these demands are spurious.

If you don't think you owe, or if you genuinely don't know, send them a "prove it" letter. There's a template on the Debt-Free Wannabe forum.

6659 said:

I understand from Ofgen that energy companies cannot back charge after a year? As this demand is way past that can they enforce it?

Ofgem's back-billing rules only apply to licensed energy supply companies. TE lost their licence years ago, and as a result Ofgem's rules don't apply.
They can pursue unpaid bills for six years (or five, in Scotland).

FreeBear

QrizB said:

6659 said:

Just had a demand from BS&B for the administrators of TE for £162

Do you think you owe them any money? Some of these demands are spurious.

If you don't think you owe, or if you genuinely don't know, send them a "prove it" letter. There's a template on the Debt-Free Wannabe forum.

BSB were also involved in a data breach a couple of years ago that resulted in a lot of scam emails being sent out. As a consequence, I would treat any communication from them with a great deal of skepticism. The "prove it" letter is certainly the way to go - Do it by way of old fashioned post. It will cost them extra, and slow down their response time.