Utility Point - Barratt Smith Brown

MessySue

We were customers of utility point November 2020 - March 2021. We never got any bills or any communication from the, at all, so we left. (we paid by monthly direct debit)

September 2022 this collections company contacted my stating we owed money for our unpaid utility point account. I showed them all the payments we had made and they provided me with a final statement. 

They said our final total usage cost for whilst we were with utility point was £774.48 and we had only paid £122.65. I then produced copies of my bank statements and we had actually paid £613.25. Therefore owing £161.23, which I told them and set up payments to pay it off.

I never heard anything else from them until yesterday.

Now they say I still owe £530.96. I have no idea how they work this out. 

They seem to think that in 5 months we used £1548.96 of energy, which is ridiculous as even now I'm only paying £180 a month.

I have again produced copies of all my bank statements which show I have paid in total £774.48. I have provided metre readings showing the actual usage.

What do I do next? I'm tempted to let them take me to court and prove my point then, but in reality could do without the stress.

Brie

What you pay per month on a direct debit has little to do with the power that you actually use.  And if it's a different property, a different time of year and a different tariff things are going to be very different as well.

So presumably at this point you have bills that cover the entire period when you were customers with UP.  And so have all the units used and tariffs on which you  were being charged.  If you've got those you should be able to work out the total bill and see how close it is to the £774+ that you have paid.  

Write to them and remind them that they cannot back bill you more than 12 months (long gone) for energy used if bills were not produced on time.  Tell them further that you are not responsible for any additional charges, fees or interest if the bills were not provided in a timely fashion to give you a chance to pay.  Label you letter "Complaint" and tell them they have a total of 8 weeks to respond to this and if they don't you will take it to the energy ombudsman.

Assuming UP is still a business (I can't keep track) I would be writing to them and not a collection agency.  Remind them also that you have at no point given them permission to pass on personal information to a collection agency and want the agency to erase all of your information from their files.  

brewerdave

Utility Point have long since gone to the wall! Customers were switched to EDF in September 2021.
BSB have form for chasing spurious debts - there are literally thousands of ex Together/Bristol Energy customers who have been presented with invented "final" balances with zero supporting evidence. They will not be taking you to Court without sufficient paperwork ,that they will not be able to produce.