Text from "Opos Limited" - should I get in touch?

Hi all,

So to wrap this up, the debt agency texted me to say that the claim was with Spark Energy, who were my old electricity supplier. I called up Spark and confirmed that I do, in fact, owe them £575.

This is frustrating because firstly, last time I spoke to them a representative on their live chat told me I was £75 in credit (and was waiting to get that back) - unfortunately as it's live chat I have no record of this.

It seems that between that conversation and more recent times, they've evaluated my bill to come up with this amount.

Firstly, I'm not happy they went to a debt collection agency. I spoke to Spark yesterday, again via live chat. To clarify, I've only been at my new address for 6 weeks or so, and they have my forwarding address! (I double-checked). They didn't even try to get that money from me via a more reasonable means; they've just went straight to debt collectors. I told them that I wasn't dealing with the debt collectors and that this was a disgraceful practice, and I would make arrangements with Spark if they could explain the discrepancy in writing (so they've sent a letter which should arrive in a few days). They agreed to retract the debt collector claim and give us a few weeks to sort this out amicably.

Secondly, they sent me (in the live chat) a summary of all my payments and readings (i.e. power usage). To give an idea to you guys reading this, they say over the time I was in that place we paid about £2100 for electricity but we used about £2675 (we had no gas, so heating was electric). This is going to be broken down in more detail in the letter that is on the way.

Based on the info they've given me, I do concede that we probably have used the electricity and we do owe them that money. What I'm not happy about, though, is that despite paying direct debits for all that time and providing them readings when requested (pretty much quarterly) that we could be so hugely behind on payments. From my perspective it's their job to adjust my direct debit payments to prevent this, so the final bill should be under £100 or so either way.

Can this be considered malpractice on their part?

Also, if not, as we were with them for several years, is it acceptable for me to insist I pay them back over monthly repayments over a year or two? As I'd argue their error was built up over this duration.

Westminster wrote: »

Sounds like perhaps you had a long period of estimated bills and its only the final reading (should have been from you so should have triggered a recalculation at the time - if you didnt do this then that would be a likely cause for your troubles)

That's the weird thing, though. They sent me a listing of all the times I gave them readings over the 3 or so years I was there; I'm not going to pretend I sent monthly readings but there were about 16 readings, spaced out over that time. I also put the power use into Excel and it's a pretty smooth line over that duration (like there isn't a sudden upswing between the penultimate and final reading).

From that perspective it means that this deviation between payments/actual use has gradually built up over a long period of time. I feel I've been let down by their service.

Again, I'm willing to pay (once I see the details in writing and confirm everything) - I just think it's a bit much to suddenly ask me for £575 out of the blue.

Westminster wrote: »

I would be trying to put together a case to make a formal complaint and perhaps eventually escalating to OFGEM once you have fully exhausted the company's complaints procedure (unless they do resolve it in a way you are happy with).

Yeah; first step I think is to talk to them about a payment plan.

I'm going to suggest that as the problem was, essentially, caused by their clerical error over a period of several years, that I should be entitled to correct it over a long duration at my convenience. I'm going to suggest a payment plan of 24 monthly payments, and see what they say. The problem is that I could pay the £575 now; I could take it out of my savings - but naturally I would rather not pay a lump sum right off the bat. However, if they want six monthly payments, I'd end up paying 90 or something a month which is even more inconvenient. It either needs to be a full up-front payment (with a complaint to the relevant ombudsman) or a long-term plan of convenient small payments (without one).