An electricity company and their solicitors

[Republik]

An unnamed electricity company that sounds a lot like Ian and their bandit bunch of solicitors decided to send me a baliffs letter threatening to visit my home for a bill of £146 becuase it hadn't been paid between the 14th Jan (when the bill was ready to view) and the 21st Jan (when the threatening letter was written).

I will and always have paid my bill on the 25th of every month (pay day) and is well within the 14 day period specified by the energy supply.

Please someone explain why they would send a baliffs letter, explaining there have been severals reminders for payment!! In 7 days, yeah right, I have received 1 email to say my bill is ready and that is all.

Is this normal practice now for these companies?

[singlecoil]

Sounds like someone there has made a mistake, ring them up and sort it out.

Edited by singlecoil on Sunday 24th January 11:04

[Timsta]

Double check your paperwork. It can't be a bailiffs letter, it would have to have gone to court first. Not possible is that time frame. Is it not from a previous year?

[chr15b]

I'm with singlecoil. in the millions of invoices they send out they are quite possible to make a mistake once in a while. however if you speak to them and they dont sort it, then i'd agree you have a reason to be miffed.

that is unless as the other poster suggested this is for a different year.

ETA, you read the letter as threatening, but bear in mind there is an amount of information they have to put in there by law to stress the seriousness of the situation (which probably doesnt exist because of the previous mentioned mistake..)

Edited by chr15b on Sunday 24th January 11:12

[Republik]

Definitely this months bill. I will post up the letter tomorrow at work if this is still on going. I'll also post up my response to them when I get home later on.

I googled the solicitors name, their actual website comes up 6th after all the websites regarding complaints against their company.

Edited by Republik on Sunday 24th January 11:14

[TheCarpetCleaner]

I had a similar thing with a company similar to M Power...

Bill sent through on the 15th of the month, collections letter sent on 26th of the month after I paid it on the 25th. This means that they passed it to their collections department within 5 days of the bill being invoiced

I called them, spoke to an overseas callcentre who did not know what the hell I was on about.

I will be changing suppliers shortly.

[littlegreenfairy]

TheCarpetCleaner said:

I had a similar thing with a company similar to M Power...

Bill sent through on the 15th of the month, collections letter sent on 26th of the month after I paid it on the 25th. This means that they passed it to their collections department within 5 days of the bill being invoiced

I called them, spoke to an overseas callcentre who did not know what the hell I was on about.

I will be changing suppliers shortly.

They do this - we've always received "red" letters about a day after the bill is sent. It is dated the 5th, arrives on the 16th and is due to be paid on the 21st. Usually get the reminder before the actual bill.

[TheCarpetCleaner]

littlegreenfairy said:

TheCarpetCleaner said:

I had a similar thing with a company similar to M Power...

Bill sent through on the 15th of the month, collections letter sent on 26th of the month after I paid it on the 25th. This means that they passed it to their collections department within 5 days of the bill being invoiced

I called them, spoke to an overseas callcentre who did not know what the hell I was on about.

I will be changing suppliers shortly.

They do this - we've always received "red" letters about a day after the bill is sent. It is dated the 5th, arrives on the 16th and is due to be paid on the 21st. Usually get the reminder before the actual bill.

Glad to know the morons are not just picking on me

I don't bode well to threats, especially if I have done nothing wrong. :angry:

I never had these problems when I was with British Gas for both bills.

[Republik]

Just reading the letter again. It quotes, "Despite several reminders." In 7 days, I don't think so somehow. As mentioned, 1 email saying the bill is ready to view is all I've received.

It goes on to say if the bill remains unpaid they will pass it on to "Ian's Field Collections Team who will arrange to visit your property."

My response was this:

Dear Sir,

I am flabbergasted to receive a letter from you dated 21st January 2010 concerning an unpaid amount of £147.67 for the above account. We have been with Ian now for 4 years and have never failed to make payment on any occasion.

This amount you are chasing was requested by Ian on the 14th January - 7 days prior to your letter. I think you will find in our agreement with Ian we have 14 days to pay our bill which we have done so for the last 4 years. If you feel the need to check this please contact Ian for details who I am sure will be able to show you our previous statements showing full payment upon request within 14 days of receiving our bill.

The bill will be paid on Monday 25th January 2010 meaning it will have been 11 days since the bill was processed which we are quite within our rights to do. The letter states we have received several reminders which is a completely false statement. We have received one email to confirm our bill is ready to view and no correspondence since. This leads me to believe this letter is either an elaborate scam or some sort of windup.

Should you wish to confirm on Monday 25th January that the bill has been paid please contact Eon who I am sure will confirm that is has been paid.

Republik.

[soad]

How do you pay the said bill? By Direct Debit i'm guesssing. If so, these letters are way out of order.

[Republik]

soad said:

How do you pay the said bill? By Direct Debit i'm guesssing. If so, these letters are way out of order.

Always debit card. I came out of the direct debit scheme after they charged me £65 one month then £350 the next. Always debit card, and always the 25th, except of course last month.

[chr15b]

Yep they're gits for that, you are £5 in debit, we'll increase direct debit by 500%

[Vron]

I always get a Final Notice red letter (no normal bill) form Yorkshire water even though I pay direct debit

[soad]

Probably common practice then - if payment not received within the certain date, computer generated letters are being posted/passed onto their solicitor dept. Yes, 7 days period is a joke.
Now that you're no longer paying via DD, they'll be trying to scare people into paying the said bill asap perhaps. It sucks frankly.

[Republik]

soad said:

Now that you're no longer paying via DD, they'll be trying to scare people into paying the said bill asap perhaps.

That's exactly what I thought, or scare me into joining up to Direct Debit again.

[jesta1865]

you could struggle with this one fella, tey have just given notice to make redundant 600 people at the call centre in essex.

i have been told by someone who was at the meeting and hence lost is job that the staff were not happy, and some of them have been telling people to join british gas as quote 'we are crap'

hope someone sorts it out soon, i suspect they have you mixed up with someone else, fingers crossed.

[pimpin gimp]

I'd suggest changing to the company who sound like grittish bass. We get our bill, forget to pay it and then a month later get a nice pink letter (presumably red is too abrupt!) saying "We expect you've forgotten to pay your bill, could you please do so within 14 days"

And then we pay it, very nice company to deal with. A little bit of me feels sorry for being so tardy with the payments!