Bills you don’t owe, menacing debt collectors: the terrifying world of energy company customers | Money

I periodically electrify readers with energy bill drama. Before you hang up, let me assure you that utility companies are masters of tension. Read if you dare:

action I

A curtain on a miserable house in Oxfordshire. Owner XS has twice been informed that he owes Ovo nearly £37,000. This is a surprise for a man who is completely up to date with his payments. This allows him and his sick wife a few months of panic before he realizes that he actually owes him £4,000.

He was promised that it would be credited to his account. It’s not. Ovo then decides he only owes £2,000. This is also non-refundable. Nor does he send the promised technician to read the meter. It has failed to do so since 2017.

I go in armed with a title. Ovo screamed that the £37,000 was just a balance statement triggered by a faulty meter and its “systems” would have realized the absurdity of this before sending a bill. It belatedly got around to installing a smart meter and paid compensation of £500.

Act II

The scene moves to Edinburgh where MP and his wife dare not leave their house for fear that strangers will come in and demand payment in advance. MP keeps up with his payments, but he pays E.ON Next because E.ON Next supplies him with energy.

That’s not enough for Scottish Power. The letters from debt collectors began as soon as the couple moved in early 2022.

They were originally in the name of the previous owner, but Scottish Power is clever. It tells the MP that requests will continue to his address until he can trace the debtor and that, although he is not the debtor, debt collectors will call “as part of the recovery process”.

When the Energy Ombudsman upheld the MP’s complaint, Scottish Power used personal details provided in his complaint to create an account in his name. And rejects the £250 compensation as “excessive”. The MP has since been personally prosecuted for a debt of over £5,000 and has been informed that bailiffs are applying for a warrant to enter his property.

come in Observer. Scottish Power discovered a stranger’s meter was wrongly registered to the MP’s address when he inherited the account from a non-existent supplier. It blithely admitted that it collected the data provided to the ombudsman to open an account in the MP’s name, despite its previous admissions that he was not a debtor. It has now changed the meter database, refused the hounds and added a further £250 to the compensation it previously failed to pay.

Act III

We are still in Edinburgh where RDThe 81-year-old father of is tired of a year of letters and bills from Octopus addressed to the “housewife” and demanding that he identify himself.

He is not and never has been an Octopus customer and has returned mail to sender. This infuriates the Octopus, who doesn’t want to miss the chance for something for nothing.

So he unleashes debt collectors who send demands on his behalf. Octopus eventually discovers that someone else’s electricity meter is registered to his address, but claims he is powerless to correct the database and the weekly threats keep coming.

The octopus tells Observer it never received the letters that RD’s father returned and therefore had no idea there was a problem. It has now stopped requests.

Act IV

In London, DSN receives a threatening letter from a debt collector demanding £422 on behalf of British Gas. The debt is related to part of a house he left in 2022.

DSN is puzzled. He was not the named account holder at that house. And the meter was prepaid. In vain he explains this to British Gas, who think he should pay regardless.

I have experience. This time it is explained that in 2021 a tenant who was before DSN informed the company that the house had a credit meter. So British Gas nonchalantly recorded this in their system and started making up bills addressed to the occupier during the year that DSN and his flatmates were powering the prepayment meter.

It adds vaguely that “someone” at some point provided the name to the DSN and so the requests were sent to it. Already canceled the imaginary debt and apologized.

action V

AW, a single lady living modestly in a small flat in Glasgow, is horrified by a claim from British Gas for £1,281. The bill shows she used enough energy for a month to power a cannabis farm.

Her typical monthly consumption is under £100 and is recorded by a smart meter. British Gus is unmoved and insists on coughing. AW is sick with worry.

Later, cowering in the media spotlight, British Gas blamed the system upgrade. AW’s meter readings were entered incorrectly when her account was migrated to a new platform and she was charged for gas she had already paid for. Offers her a £75 apology.

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