On a dark winter's night, what could be more exciting than my latest spine-tingling tragi-farm about energy companies?
Act I
The location is Stafford, where kmAn elderly mother lives alone in a council house equipped with a smart prepayment meter. She was persuaded to switch to British Gas with the promise of “preferential tariffs”, after which the meter stopped working.
Since she can no longer control her credit or consumption, her electricity supply continues to be cut off. And since gas is not supplied to the house, it remains without heating. She can't pay through the app because it tells her her account is locked.
“Every time she calls, she gets different advice,” says K.M. One agent wants a retired woman to go up the stairs and take a photo of the meter number that is already on his records (she recently returned from the hospital).
Another advises her to use an old recharge card from her previous provider. She does this by investing more money into it. Unsurprisingly, this had no effect and she now faces a refund from a supplier with whom she no longer has an account.
Eighteen days after crossing, she can't check what she was paid for and can't keep warm.
British Gas' conscience is always stung by the headline. He admits to an inexplicable “delay” in her bill transfer that left her without heating three times in one cold week.
He also acknowledged the lack of customer service when she complained. Now he is transferring her to a credit meter, fixing the problem with the application and paying her for the “inconvenience.”
Act II
In Glasgow, RW spent seven years telling his supplier that something was wrong with his accounts.
Since the new meter was installed in 2018, they have become huge. So huge that for several years he was left with a four-figure debit because his ever-increasing direct debits couldn't keep up. In vain he sent photographs of his counter first to Bulba, and then, when it collapsed, Octopus Energy.
Both agreed that something was wrong, but since they couldn't figure out what it was, they kept helping themselves with RW's money, and RW kept going into debt.
When he tried to switch suppliers this year, the new company noticed a catch: His meter readings were recorded in cubic feet, not cubic meters, meaning he was potentially billed about 35 times more than he should have been.
Octopus promised to look into it, but the only contact RW had received in the past weeks were larger bills.
“I feel financially at the mercy of a company that doesn’t really care about me,” he laments.
Enter Guardian Money and Octopus will get to work.
It explains that the change from imperial to metric meter in 2018 was not recorded in the energy base, so its bills continued to be calculated in cubic feet. This has now been corrected and the RW report has been verified and backdated.
Result? It turned out he had overpaid by more than £8,000. He has since been repaid that amount plus 8% interest and 10% compensation – a total of just under £12,000.
Act III
We're in Dorset, where Owo threatens a teenage schoolgirl with ruining her credit rating. The utility company decided she owed her £20.
The fact that it concerns a rental property that her family left a year ago and covers the period after they moved in does not interest Ovo. Debt collectors tell her she faces legal action if she doesn't pay.
This plot is eerily similar to my previous drama in which Ovo billed a teenage boy for goods at an address he had long since abandoned.
Ovo doesn't talk to the girl's mother G.S.who was the account holder during the rental due to GDPR. He doesn't think it's strange that GS has a paid Ovo account for the family's current home, which was opened when they moved.
“How did our society get to the point where big business can threaten children because of other people’s debts?” she asks. Ovo blames tracing agents who match debts with creditors who somehow obtained the student's details and matched them with debt accumulated between tenancies.
Now he canceled the debt, deleted her data and sent a box of White Company lotions as a sign of repentance.
We welcome emails, but cannot respond individually. Write to us at [email protected] or write to Consumer Champions, Money, The Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please provide a daytime phone number. Submission and publication of all letters are subject to our conditions.
