Received a letter from BW Legal for a 15 year old British Gas "debt"

fatbelly

mall83 said:

So I've just received another letter from BW Legal. In their latest letter they've stated:

"Please be advised that the supply period for this matter is 11 July 2023 to 20 September 2023. You have advised that you left the property 15 years ago, please provide documents to support your claims."

They've not included any copies of bills with my name on or copies of letters from British Gas asking for the money, nothing, no proof at all. Instead, they're asking me to prove that I don't owe it.

What would you advise my next steps to be as they've ignored what I asked for in the prove it letter I sent them?

I don't really want to send them proof of address at previous addresses because that would provide them with my married name and, it feels like I'd be doing their job for them. Surely, if British Gas has sold them a debt from last year they would have provided the account holder details.

You've asked them to prove this is your debt and they certainly have not done that.

No point in getting involved with letter tennis

mall83

@A_Geordie I did take your last message on board an incorporated elements from points 3 and 4 of your last message into the prove it letter.

They are acting on behalf of BG. I'll take your advice and write to them outlining what you've advised, and then cease communication with them.

Would you also recommend sending copies of the letter to the The Law Society or Ombudsman, as they're not following the correct protocols, and telling them that I'm doing that?

fatbelly

Bw legal have a complaints procedure.

https://www.bwlegal.co.uk/complaints-procedure

You can escalate to FOS, and for what it's worth, the CSA. You can't use the Legal Ombudsman or the Energy Ombudsman

https://www.csa-uk.com/page/complaints

A_Geordie

mall83 said:

@A_Geordie I did take your last message on board an incorporated elements from points 3 and 4 of your last message into the prove it letter.

They are acting on behalf of BG. I'll take your advice and write to them outlining what you've advised, and then cease communication with them.

Would you also recommend sending copies of the letter to the The Law Society or Ombudsman, as they're not following the correct protocols, and telling them that I'm doing that?

If you've already used some of my suggestions then it's all you really need to say, but I don't think you should just ignore them altogether, at least some communication of your intention should be sufficient. If BG want to pursue this in court then they will struggle I think and probably discontinue before it goes to a hearing.

As for BW, you can't complain via the Ombudsman as you are not a client of theirs, but you can write to the Solicitors Regulation Authority if you so wish, though it is optional so don't think you have to. You can report them using this link which explains the process if they do investigate: https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/. Keep the complaint concise and where possible reference any breaches of the Code of Conduct which you can find here: https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/code-conduct-solicitors/. Make sure you tie the provisions back to your case as to why you think they have breached the code.

Relevant provisions are likely to be rules 1.3, 2.4 and 2.6 (if it goes to court, but they are threatening to so it's reasonable to assume it will happen). Don't expect to hear anything back or that they will take any action but sometimes you do. Doubtful BW will do anything different to what they are doing as they're still acting on behalf of BG and that's where their instructions come from. 

Otherwise, as others have said, pointless going back and forth with them, you'll get nowhere.

UKX69

My wife and I were in a similar position a number of years back. The difference being that the debt collection agency had my wife down as being the account holder which was not correct. As A Geordie outlined, I wrote to the debt firm with a prove it clause in the letter. I had a reply a little while later with a change of tone as to we are only doing our job, but we will back check that we have the right information. At the same time I wrote to BG demanding to know what is going on. I also received a reply a while later with many apologies stating that a debt was sold on which mistakingly and mysteriously had contained my wife’s name. I had BG to check all credit agencies to make sure that we were not blacklisted, the debt firm was told to drop the action and we received compensation.

mall83

@DasTechniker Compensation?? Well done on getting that. I was thinking of writing to British Gas as well, so I think I'll definitely do that now. I won't hold my breath for compensation, but it'll be nice if it comes. BW Legal haven't managed to send me any proof that I'm even named on the account. I think I've just shown up on a spreadsheet and they can't be bothered to do their job.

UKX69

mall83 said:

@DasTechniker Compensation?? Well done on getting that. I was thinking of writing to British Gas as well, so I think I'll definitely do that now. I won't hold my breath for compensation, but it'll be nice if it comes. BW Legal haven't managed to send me any proof that I'm even named on the account. I think I've just shown up on a spreadsheet and they can't be bothered to do their job.

It was a number of years ago now, and if I remember correctly, I didn’t specifically ask for compensation but laid out the stress, worry, cost and inconvenience we had gone to to bring this to BG’s attention. The ‘compensation’ was in the form of a years insurance type cover for boiler maintenance breakdowns etc.