What action can I take for not receiving a bill?

eskbanker

smellymel74 said:

I’m now thinking action under consumer protection law is the only way to go - the site owner is failing to provide a service with reasonable care and skill I think, though there may be other consumer rules - suggestions welcome! 

[...]

I’m looking for advice from anyone who’s taken any service provider to court for a consumer protection issue. How difficult is it really?? 

smellymel74 said:

What I’m looking for is another way beyond a tribunal to force them to provide invoices/bills - under consumer protection law maybe as they’re not providing billing services (at all and certainly not with reasonable care and skill) but I’ve no idea if this is possible. 

I think it's important to differentiate between rights and their enforcement - it seems clear that you already have rights (verified by an independent tribunal) but are having difficulty enforcing them, so trying to establish if you have any other rights (under more generic legislation) wouldn't really seem to move you any further forward?  In any case, it's still unclear that your more generic consumer rights really come into play, bearing in mind the service is fundamentally provision of electricity, rather than provision of billing, not that it's unreasonable to expect more detail than you've been given.

Returning to your point about being able to check against your meters, assuming you've kept records of their readings, are you able to reverse engineer the tariff, based on the usage over that 16 month period in which you were charged £1500?  Granted, there'll be a mix of standing charges and usage, so it can't be an exact measure, but is that total inherently suspicious?  What was the situation before that 16 months, is that when you moved in or do you have usage and billing history before that?

ArbitraryRandom

smellymel74 said:

I just want bills and I’m sure they’re not providing them on purpose now just so they can keep disconnecting me and forcing me to pay to be reconnected again until I eventually give up as there’s seemingly nothing else I can do to make them give me a bill. I can’t believe this behaviour isn’t against some consumer or trading law or other but I’m stumped. 

That's one of the reasons I was leaning towards you taking them to court - to seek back the potentially unlawful reconnection fee (if you were unlawfully disconnected, which seems to be supported by your tribunal result, then any costs arising from that action should be borne by the person responsible for the disconnection - i.e. your landlord). 

If disconnecting you costs THEM money (the fee plus your court costs) then they may be more open to the idea of giving you the information you are entitled to.