Chased for outstanding debt I was told to ignore by British Gas

FatalWebMunki

Morning all,

I'm hoping I can have some genuine guidance on what I should do for the next steps even if that is to say "You have to pay".

During this whole process none of my details have ever changed, same address, contact details (mobile, email etc.).

I've tried to keep copies of everything so the entire process is recorded & date stamped in some way.

February 2021: Simplicity Energy ceased trading and we were moved to British Gas (BG).

March 2021: Moved from BG to People's Energy.

January 2022: People's Energy ceased trading and we were moved to BG.

July 2022: Moved from BG to Utility Warehouse (UW).

July 26th 2022: I received an email from BG stating: "We wanted to send you a quick reminder and let you know that your final energy bill for £382.90 is due to be paid by 2nd August 2022." I logged into my BG account to check the details but the outstanding balance was only showing £52.30 in debit.

July 26th 2022: I jumped straight into an online chat with a live agent and they confirmed that my outstanding balance was indeed £52.30. After chatting to them they replied with "Don't you worry, I've thoroughly gone through your account and the only balance you've remaining on your account is £52.30 in debit. Please ignore that email or letter that you've received.". I took a copy of the chat and was also provided with a chat reference ID.

August 2nd 2022: I received another email from BG "Your final energy bill for £382.90 is now overdue.". Ignored as I was advised to do.

September 12th 2022: Received another email from BG "We've recently been in touch about your final bill, but we still haven't received a payment from you and your final energy bill for £382.90 is now overdue.". This time the email also said: "If we don’t hear from you in the next few days, we’ll pass your details to a debt collection agency to recover the balance."

September 12th 2022: Logged into my BG account again and it showed no outstanding balance (paid off the original £52.30). Jumped into another online chat and explained that while I'm no longer a BG customer I'm being chased for an outstanding balance that I don't appear to owe and that now I'm being threatened with a debt collection agency. I explained I'm genuinely worried and don't know what to do. The agent replied with "You can surely avoid that email as of now. As I can check the amount has been paid on 08.08.2022". I can only assume they were referring to my £52.30 amount. Either way I was told to "avoid that email". I asked if the conversation is stored against my account so it can be referred to if there are any issues and again was told I can save the chat and it will have a reference number for it.

September 21st 2022: I received another email from BG which read: "We’ve sent you reminders to let you know your final bill is overdue. We still haven’t heard from you and your final energy bill for £382.90 is still outstanding. We have now passed your details to a debt collection agency who will be in touch with you to recover the balance."

October 2022: Received a letter from BW Legal (BWL) "Specialists in Legal Recoveries", on behalf of their client BG, chasing for the £382.90 outstanding balance.

October 24th 2022: Went online to the BWL portal and challenged their request by submitting a "You've made a mistake" form and provided text file of chat logs and chat references. I received a confirmation email that it was received.

October 24th 2022: Started a complaint process with BG. Provided ALL details of everything above (chat references etc.) and the BWL Legal Ref too. I explained that I'm not sure how much more of this I can take as I've done everything I can to handle it and was advised from the very beginning that I do NOT have an outstanding balance and to "ignore" or "avoid" the emails. Now I'm being threatened with "further collection activity". I also provided my BG Customer Reference Number and supply address to make sure there was no excuse and they had everything for me and my account (as I was no longer an active customer).

November 7th 2022: Received text message from BG to apologise for the delay in their response to my complaint. Once again they stated "While I checked your account, there was no outstanding balance. To investigate this further, I've raised this with our team and they've confirmed they'll ensure this is getting resolved for you.". Also provided a reference number for the complaint also.

November 8th 2022: Received automated email from BG which was a confirmation of my complaint: "We're looking into your complaint".

November 14th 2022: Received a follow-up text from BG which said the following: "We've received many contact from our customer informing the same and this was taken to our team. They've got this resolved and ensure this will not happen again for you. Since there was a complaint raised, we've cross checked with team again just to avoid your repeat contact. As there are no pending actions on the account from my end, is it ok if I go ahead and close the complaint. Please be assured, the complaint is registered on your account and you can be used for any future reference.". I've taken this as everything being fine again and responded to the text to say I was happy with them to close it.

December 21st 2022: Received an automated email from BWL stating that the evidence provided in my original "You've made a mistake" submission was in an insufficient format. As I had launched a complaint process with BG and, once again, confirmed that I do NOT owe anything, I ignored this email and assumed BG would be picking this up with BWL.

January 27th 2023: BWL email chasing for money, offering instalment payment option of £15 per month.

March 7th 2023: BWL email chasing for money, offering 20% discount and payment option of £35 per month.

March 2023: Went online to the BWL portal again and submitted another "You've made a mistake" form and reiterated everything before including the complaint process and any BG reference(s) and that I do not wish to be bothered anymore with this - hoping that some push-back might be enough.

May 15th 2023: Received an email from BWL stating the following: "Thank you for your recent contact, the contents of which have been noted on file. Please note that the matter is currently being queried and your file has been placed on a hold. You will be contacted in due course regarding our Client’s response."

October 12th 2023: Letter received from BWL still chasing for the remaining balance. Their letter states: "Further to the query you raised with us, our client has confirmed that the account was logged on the old billing system which the employee at the time wouldn't have had access to. They have apologised for this confusion however the final bill for this account A###### was issued on email before the account was moved from the old billing system." it then goes onto to say "The balance of £382.90 remains due and owing. Please find enclosed a copy of the bill." I now have 10 days to respond or it "may lead to further collections activity.". I checked the attached copy of the bill and it shows a statement of £382.90 covering 16th February 2021 to 31 March 2021 (statement date: 18th April 2021). My first email for this owed balance wasn't raised until July 26th 2022 when I was leaving BG to go to UW.

What or who should I be contacting about this? I've not received any other correspondence around this owed £382.90 until July 2022.

BWL just want money, BG have constantly said I owe nothing but they also appear to have done nothing to help either despite being told on multiple occasions that they would resolve it.

I also don't understand why I haven't received any emails prior to July 2022 chasing for the debt, threatening debt collection action etc. It appears to have taken over a year??!

I appreciate any advice or who I should be contacting regarding this.

Thank you in advance.

Have a great day everyone.

FatalWebMunki

Sorry for the large gaps too. I did "Preview" the post first and it looked fine until I posted it.

ArbitraryRandom

First thing to check - re the info you had on 12th October... have you looked at it and confirmed for yourself (by comparing to your own account statements) that you don't owe the money? 

If you have and you are sure you don't owe anything (not just that BG have said so on chat) then you can escalate your original complaint to the ombudsman.

If you aren't sure, then it might be worth raising this with BG - having them confirm this is actually a bill against your account, and telling them you believe they can't charge you for this amount due to the delay raising the bill and back billing rules... which may eventually end up with you going to the ombudsman anyway, or might make it go away.  

SwanJon

FatalWebMunki said:

February 2021: Simplicity Energy ceased trading and we were moved to British Gas (BG). - [ BG Account 1]

March 2021: Moved from BG to People's Energy.

January 2022: People's Energy ceased trading and we were moved to BG. - [ BG Account 2]

July 2022: Moved from BG to Utility Warehouse (UW).

Best guess is that the two values refer to two different accounts, the advisor you spoke to could see account 2 and discussed that account with you. The system was getting in touch about account 1.

It's a service failure not to spot this, and the delay was probably down to the process of moving from Simplicity to BG, but the balance was probably valid. You may get a reduction for this (back billing, poor service).
Do you know what your balance was with Simplicity in Feb21? Anything outstanding would have been passed to BG account 1. 

Jyana

Agree with SwanJon, this looks like it's to do with the first account you had with them, so any contact you were chasing with them under your later second account number is why they didn't connect it. A bit bad that they couldn't tie the address together though. 

Not sure about back billing rules, it may apply here as it was more than 12 months between you switching away from them and (not actually) being sent the final bill, but others will know the ruling far better than I do for sure. 

FatalWebMunki

ArbitraryRandom said:

First thing to check - re the info you had on 12th October... have you looked at it and confirmed for yourself (by comparing to your own account statements) that you don't owe the money? 

If you have and you are sure you don't owe anything (not just that BG have said so on chat) then you can escalate your original complaint to the ombudsman.

If you aren't sure, then it might be worth raising this with BG - having them confirm this is actually a bill against your account, and telling them you believe they can't charge you for this amount due to the delay raising the bill and back billing rules... which may eventually end up with you going to the ombudsman anyway, or might make it go away.  

That's a very good point. I'm not sure why I didn't think to check my own accounts quickly to confirm.

FatalWebMunki

SwanJon said:

FatalWebMunki said:

February 2021: Simplicity Energy ceased trading and we were moved to British Gas (BG). - [ BG Account 1]

March 2021: Moved from BG to People's Energy.

January 2022: People's Energy ceased trading and we were moved to BG. - [ BG Account 2]

July 2022: Moved from BG to Utility Warehouse (UW).

Best guess is that the two values refer to two different accounts, the advisor you spoke to could see account 2 and discussed that account with you. The system was getting in touch about account 1.

It's a service failure not to spot this, and the delay was probably down to the process of moving from Simplicity to BG, but the balance was probably valid. You may get a reduction for this (back billing, poor service).
Do you know what your balance was with Simplicity in Feb21? Anything outstanding would have been passed to BG account 1. 

Yea - I thinking this is probably the *cause* of the whole issue. I'm not entirely sure what my balance was with Simplicity. I'm pretty sure it would have been settled or in credit (I was nearly £500 in credit with People's Energy when I was moved to BG again).

I'll try to see if I can find a copy of info but everything went digital and only alerts for meter readings etc. were emailed.

FatalWebMunki

Jyana said:

Agree with SwanJon, this looks like it's to do with the first account you had with them, so any contact you were chasing with them under your later second account number is why they didn't connect it. A bit bad that they couldn't tie the address together though. 

Not sure about back billing rules, it may apply here as it was more than 12 months between you switching away from them and (not actually) being sent the final bill, but others will know the ruling far better than I do for sure. 

That's what concerns me. The debt collection agency say BG emailed before the billing was migrated back in 2021 but I never received anything from BG. That and there were no additional reminders (like they did from July 2022 onwards), no chasing for outstanding debt, no threats of collection agency back in 2021.

It's like switching caused notifications to go silent until I went to leave again in July 2022 and then I received my first email regarding an outstanding balance.

FatalWebMunki

I'll check my bank statements later tonight (once done with work).

Something I did notice, which I can't quite understand is, my customer reference number hasn't changed either between switching over the years.

The same BG Customer Reference number from my initial move in 2021 (Simplicity Energy > British Gas) into 2022 (People's Energy > British Gas) was the same based on the emails received. Surely you would expect them to be different if one account didn't match another?

Just a thought...

ArbitraryRandom

FatalWebMunki said:

Jyana said:

Agree with SwanJon, this looks like it's to do with the first account you had with them, so any contact you were chasing with them under your later second account number is why they didn't connect it. A bit bad that they couldn't tie the address together though. 

Not sure about back billing rules, it may apply here as it was more than 12 months between you switching away from them and (not actually) being sent the final bill, but others will know the ruling far better than I do for sure. 

That's what concerns me. The debt collection agency say BG emailed before the billing was migrated back in 2021 but I never received anything from BG. That and there were no additional reminders (like they did from July 2022 onwards), no chasing for outstanding debt, no threats of collection agency back in 2021.

It's like switching caused notifications to go silent until I went to leave again in July 2022 and then I received my first email regarding an outstanding balance.

The important thing is when they issued (not generated) the bill - which is something I'm not sure you can check (it will be recorded on their system). 

I would suggest your view should be that they can't charge due to back billing... and leave it to them to argue they can. Given you repeatedly contacted them about this matter and were assured there was no debt should play in your favour with the ombudsman if it gets that far. 

[Deleted User]

Hi,

FatalWebMunki said:

Sorry for the large gaps too. I did "Preview" the post first and it looked fine until I posted it.

that's because if you add a single line space when composing your message it shows as a double space when posted.

Without a single line space when composing will show as a single space when posted.