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andonandon

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  1. Thanks for the reply. I didn't trust the phone calls so I've waited until I received a letter, I maybe should have said this. 'Our client has informed us that the above balance remains outstanding, and we have been asked to contact you regarding available options' Also 'Regarding British gas business' Above the amount claimed. With reference numbers for themselves and bgb. This suggests to me that bgb still own the debt, but I'm not sure. It's less than 10k. I'm not a big fan of sitting about waiting, hence me asking what I can do in the mean time. Can a business send a prove the debt letter? And is there any point? At this point the original mistake was over 6 years ago, but even though I haven't paid that off, I have been paying for what I use so I don't think it classes as statute barred.
  2. Hi, I've posted about my issues with British gas business electricity supply before, but I think this deserves a new post since it's a different question. Short version, I've long standing (2007) issues with British gas and their miss billing and have been to court 13 times for their disconnection warrants. On the times they actually showed up AND it went to the magistrates (twice) the magistrates have sided with me on both occasions, once I presented my evidence. BGB don't keep records far enough back so they're winging it at this point. I did use the ombudsman, but they failed me massively, contradicting themselves in their overly late response, and have been unwilling to listen to my complaints. They (bgb) have now sent the account to Arvato financial solutions (debt collectors). When they announced they (bgb) would do so, I contacted them by email to raise another complaint, giving them one last chance to sort things out. I received one missed call before they sent it over. No emails other than auto generated ones. I will not deal with them on the phone. I have three questions: Firstly, If/when it goes to court again, will i be able to turn up in person, and is it likely to be near me or will I have to travel? Ideally I would like to be there, but I have everything in writing if not. Secondly, what should my next step be? I've considered a proof of debt letter, but since they are only addressing the business (ltd) and not myself, I would need to write it as the business. I'm not giving them any personal details. They are already harassing my phone. Thirdly, Do arvato now have the account, and is my debt with bgb cleared? And if so, who is then responsible for my not insignificant costs for appearing in court all those times? I won, after all.
  3. Update: I was back in court today for another disconnection warrant. Spoke to the representative from British gas who recognised me. He understood what was going on and knew I was in the right, he offered to remove my warrant then and there but I said I would rather see the judge and have him side with me as that will give me more weight to go forward and try and put an end to this. Eventually got to see the judge and he sided with me and denied the warrant. Winner winner chicken dinner. Unsure exactly where to go from here though, the representative said he would do what he could to try and resolve it and reopen communications (another thing the judge asked for), wondered if anyone had any advice? They are still asking for a large amount and have miss billed me again this month by adding on 450£ for a disconnection that never happened haha. Not surprised by anything they do anymore. Thanks in advance
  4. I've had plenty of those. And 'pre disconnection charges' with no disconnection. Or even a warrant.
  5. As a very brief summary, British gas business sent me a letter stating they would refuse a contract based on there being an outstanding amount on the account that was a miss billing that was subsequently removed. They refuse to back date contracts to that date. They have sent me 9 warrant notifications over the years on a rightfully disputed account which I have attended. The ombudsman failed me due to bad communication.
  6. Yes they are both related. I thought the best course was to start a new thread given the information available to me now. And sorry about the mistakes, I proof read it at least twice, not sure how they got through but by the time I realised it was after the allowed 10 minutes. Yes the 39k,25k and 40k at the beginning are meter reads (unit values on the meter not money). And for some reason my phone loves to put contact instead of contract, sorry. I think you can tell where the mistakes are easy enough though.
  7. Right as promised this is a main thread to hopefully get some advice on what to do about the problems im having with them, bear with me, there's a lot to get through. I started renting the property in November 2006. 2 weeks before I got the keys there was a meter read taken of around 39k,when I took it over the landlord gave an incorrect reading of 25k, 2 weeks after that another read was taken of around 40k. BGB being what they are, used the 25k reading and my first bill was £2600. After much back and forth this was corrected in 2007. It's worth mentioning at this point that in the first few months of business I received energy supply bills from various sources totalling around 10k, With the only supplier having been contacted at this point being BGB. most were easily dismissed. Although the miss billing was seemingly dealt with the bills I received from BGB were so completely random that I had no idea what I actually owed at any point (4k one month, 200 the next etc). Payments were being made regularly but a debt built up as I had no idea what I owed. They tried to pin another company's bill onto me by adding their name into the small print of my bills and even sending a debt collector for it. Eventually a smart meter was installed and (I thought) the bills were corrected. Once this was done and the bills were consistent I made good progress to clearing the debt that had built up with them. It got to the point where I was about to make a final payment but since they had been harassing me constantly with threats and the like I decided to work my bill out myself since I keep good records. All the correct data was entered into a spreadsheet and there was still a discrepancy of a few hundred pounds (overcharged). I raised this with BGB and supplied the spreadsheet and instead of removing the discrepancy, they added on £1200 to my bill. Upon checking the revised bills they had added back on the original, wrong, meter reading and made up dates to suit this, 6 months before I took over the premises. This was October 2012. Obviously I raised this with the person dealing with it and for some unknown reason got absolutely nowhere. Many emails were sent, many phonecalls, many complaints raised. My contract was up for renewal in June 2013, in June I made a large payment with an exact pounds and pence amount which was what I thought I owed, excluding the miss billing. I asked for a new contract (over the phone after making the payment) and was refused based on there being an outstanding amount on the account. I was then placed on out of contract rates and my bills went up considerably through no fault of my own. It was around this time the warrant notifications started up again. I turned up to every one of the 9 to date, never once has it been dealt with properly. Usually removed from the list that morning. Upon speaking to one of BGB's representatives (I forget whether it was in the courts or at my premises) I was able to gain contact pricing again (April 2014). I had tried many times personally but was always refused, he must have had different contact numbers to ring and knew exactly what to say after seeing my information. At around this same time, the original meter read error was corrected, although I was never made aware of this in any form of communication. Even the corrected bill doesn't show a credit and the amount listed as the balance from the previous bill is different to the previous bill. Additionally the amount removed was around £750, not the £1200 that was added on. Even when I asked them if it had been corrected I got no answer. I was only made aware that it had been corrected from the ombudsman in 2016, more on that later. I obviously still disputed the amount and decided to involve the ombudsman in 2014. After giving them a lot of information they awarded me £250 compensation and could not tell me if the original meter read had been corrected. They also said the refusal of the contact was a separate issue and a new complaint should be raised. I rejected their decision. Nothing much happened for a while, I'd given up any hope of having my bill corrected and just started paying off what I was using. I was refused contracts again based on the outstanding amount but this time I was placed on their variable rate plan which wasn't quite as bad. The threats continued so I decided to involve the ombudsman again. Mainly due to the out of contact pricing I was placed on and my many trips to court. I advised them that I had asked for contracts during phonecalls. Their verdict was laughable this time. Initially they said because BGB had set no court dates that there was no evidence, I then supplied them with the notifications but since the dates were before the previous investigation (although not mentioned in it) that they consider them dealt with. It was only now that they informed me that the correct start date was being used (the main concern in the original investigation). As for the refusal of contracts they said there was no evidence I had asked for one (had they asked for a recording or transcript of the conversations they would have had all the evidence they needed). They also stated that they would not accept any further evidence and would be closing the case, never to look into it again. Had they mentioned to me at any point that a conversation over the phone would not have been enough, I COULD HAVE SUPPLIED AN EMAIL FROM THE BROKER I USED TO USE SAYING EXACTLY WHAT I SAID. That BGB will refuse a contract in 2013 because there was an outstanding amount on the account, which was since overturned.*The email is dated around 1 month before the contract was up. I have since (just last week) gone through all my communications from BGB and found a letter, from themselves, stating that they would be terminating my fixed price contact with them in June 2013 if I didn't clear the outstanding balance with them (that was a miss billing that was subsequently removed). I consider this letter to be damming evidence against them. Recently they have been sending me warrant notifications again (Dec, April) which I have attended. As per my other post, they actually applied and had granted a warrant in April, only they turned up 5 hours late and I had already seen the judge. This was set aside and proceedings reset. I am currently in a contact with them. I've no idea why they chose to grant me one now and not previously. I am losing a lot of good working hours over this but I refuse to let them steal my money. At this point in time, as best as I can work it out I barely owe them anything, if anything at all. If I backdate to 2013 using today's rate I would owe them a small amount (obviously excluding my lost time and any goodwill gestures that I have not received over the years). If I use the rates I was on they would owe me. Obviously the correct figure should be somewhere in between these two, which it would be had they never miss billed me. In fact they are asking for nearly £2k. I should also note that I would have left BGB 11 years ago had they never miss billed me. I've been tied into them all this time because they've always added on an amount that I don't owe. They have never been the cheapest.*I have never received a correct bill from them in 11 years. No doubt I'll be back in court again soon enough, and provided they don't try any more dodgy tactics I'm confident that any judge who sees my documentation won't grant a warrant but they may say that I need to be doing something to correct it. I think that covers the highlights! Any advice on how to go forward? It seems my only option at this point is to take them to court myself, although I've read of them countersuing people who try that so I'm a little reluctant. The ombudsman is not an option, nor are BGB's normal complaint channels because of the ombudsman's failure. I'm utterly disgusted by the treatment I've received from BGB over the years and wish I'd recorded a few of the conversations as some of the things its employees have admitted to me would see them being done for fraud. They have no morals at all and just seem to want to put me out of business. I also learned that they suffered large losses last year and need to lose 4000 jobs, so I'm not surprised this have started up again now. Sorry for the essay!
  8. I had no option to as they hadn't turned up so no warrant was applied for while I was there. No doubt I'll be back there soon enough though lol.
  9. It wasn't back in court on Wednesday, that's the day they were due to come and disconnect me, like I said, last minute! And I've been to court 9 times with this now, I've not been reimbursed for any of it and I absolutely am out of pocket over it for all the lost time. I've also found some direct proof last night, extra to what I already had that backs up my claim. I may have to take legal action against them.
  10. The warrant has been set aside, success! After finally getting through to the right department at the courts and getting a direct line to contact them on and resending the email on Friday, they have been in touch with british gas and now they have reset the proceedings. Whether or not they actually turn up tomorrow remains to be seen but the courts are on my side for this issue now and I have a contact number and name at bg that dealt with it. I have nothing in writing at this point but I feel confident I won't be getting cut off tomorrow. I've been over and over my figures and I'm confident that had British gas never miss billed me that I wouldn't owe them anything at this point. I've won this battle but the war is not over yet. I'll start a main thread with the issues I've been having, thanks for all the help.
  11. Also, can you do an SAR for a limited company? I might be getting a bit off topic here though
  12. So I've spoken to bg again, apparently their representative was stuck in traffic and didn't get there till after 1, getting in on a 2pm session and getting the warrant granted. Doesn't explain why when I rang them at 11am that day they told me it had already been through. I will be speaking to the courts again. Turning up 5 hours late is not acceptable in my eyes, especially after the judge told me he would not be issuing a warrant if they did turn up late. I would not have left unless he said this. Somethings not right here. Does anyone think the ombudsman will do anything about this warrant since its after the date they previously looked into? After all, British gas have admitted they weren't there on time...
  13. Well I've spoken to bg, as far as they know it will be going ahead, but they called the person who would have put it through and got no answer, so I'm to ring back tomorrow. Spoken to the local court, they couldn't tell me either way as it was commercial and they didn't have access to those records. They did give me an email address to send a request to, which I have. It seems that if they do turn up on the 25th, it will be very difficult to prove if the piece of paper they bring with them is legitimate or not. I'm not lying down and taking this.
  14. I'm hoping it was an auto generated letter and like I say, more scare tactics. But I Don't believe I've ever received one of these before. I'll ring the court now. Although I Wouldn't put anything past them, I know just how deviant they can be.
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