Good evening to everyone,

i am new on this forum and i am pretty frightened.

I received today 2 letters that are 100% the same from Wescot.

They are after the Address Verification and in the same time saying if i am the person above to call asap the number.

If i do not answer by 30/11/2017 they will assume the contact information they hold about me are correct.

Now to tell you the story.

It started in 2014 when i moved to UK for study.

I rented a house with 3 other people.

The electricity bill was supposed to come every 3 months.

When it came,

it came as well with the old debt from the previous tenants,

which was on the house number without a clear name.

We tried to call the gas company but the situation was far from being solved.

While i was away for my Christmas holiday the other 3 people somehow spoke with the gas company and gave my name and i started to appear as the guilty for all the debt.

An important point is that the name on the letter is different than my passport name and it was since the people provided it to the gas company, it has 3 different letters.

Now after 3 years

The Wescot company is chasing me.

In the first letter they didn't point what is the problem yet.

Tomorrow i will go to speak with the citizen advice bureau from my town to seek some answers.

What should i do now?

ignore them please..

a DCA is NOT A BAILIFF

they have

ZERO LEGAL POWERS ON ANY DEBT

if you do owe anything

you owe it to the provider

so go talk to them.

dx

Ignore, and ignore. Then when you want to think about it, ignore some more.

You dont need to visit CAB at all as they are prone to giving out incorrect advice.

who are the util provider ?

they are quite entitled to go for a backdoor CCJ and most will.

so please don't ignore.

dx

I mean ignore the DCA, not the OC.

Ok, now i live to another location and the gas provider i think it was NPOWER.

This debt is not even mine is dated before i moved in.

Should i send an email or letter to the provider to tell them this?

And even more my name is wrong it has 3 letters spelled wrong.

DO you have proof you werent at the address? such as a tenancy agreement

if the debt is from a time you were not a tenant

its nowt to do wiith you

but theres no harm in communicating with NPOWER

if you look on wetcloths letter

it will say their client is..XYZ.

as wetcloth don't buy debts they only chase for clients.

dx

I did some searching in my house and i found the next documents :

the proof about the date when i came to UK the plane ticket,

about the registration day from Uni

and about the day when i opened my bank account.

Bad is that i didn't find any contract from gas or from that house from 2014 so i don't know any account number.

Is there any chance by contacting NPOWER to tell them to search on their history the details about that house and that particular bill?

Another question would be if there is not any chance to rectify this problem,

can they put all the tenants to pay the debt, not only me?

When contacting them should i say they mistaken my name or should i use the wrong name in my defence?

Thank you very much

surely the account number is on the wetcloths letter

On the letter it doesn't say who is their client or what they want for me.

All they say is to call them if i am this person asap because we have to discuss.

Moreover, if i don't respond before 30 of this month they will assume all the details about my person are correct.

Now i am thinking if i contact them via email or post they will take my real name and change it in their database,

fact which i don't want really because the wrong name can be a sort of advantage.

And about the NPOWER you said not to ignore them.

Here at my location i never received any letter from NPOWER, maybe i received on the old address.

In the next few days i will contact this gas company via email and tell them my situation with the wrong name, old tenants bla bla.

So for the moment my plan is to ignore the Wetclothes because they didn't tell me what they want and who they represent.

Next to contact the NPOWER to try to solve the situation.

About the CAB i can say i went to them in the morning and they gave me the only advice to call the wetclothes to see what they want from me...

Hang on.....

It doesn't say their client.... So your presuming its NPOWER

Take your real name and change their database????

WHAT???

Their is something here your not telling us.

I think its you had a discussion with the other people in the house 1st, many many moons ago and its caught up with you.

What are you not telling us.

Sure i will try to say it.

So in 2014 after we received a letter from NPOWER

we found out the house had a debt which came from the previous tenants.

The debt was on the HOUSE NAME addressed to "the tenant".

We discussed with the landlord and he said he will solve it because he took pictures with the gas checks when we came.

I left for the holidays

when i came back i found out that someone provided the gas company my name and they put all the debt on my name.

When i saw the new letter,

the name was spelt wrong

it had 3 different letters than my passport name.

I spoke again with the landlord and he assured as about solving the problem.

Now after 3 years Wetclothes came after me and addressed the letter to my incorrect name from the NPOWER bill.

There was the only place where my name was wrong and is the same with this one from wetclothes.

Wetclothes said they found that i live in my actual address and they want to know if i am the person named above.

If i will answer i can rectify my details ( maybe to change the name into the correct one)

if i am not answering they will suppose everything is correct.

That's why i said they have wrong name in their database because who provided my name they spelled it wrong on the phone.

Now because i know about the problem i had with the gas company and because i recognized the name from wetclothes letter

i am 100% sure the problem is connected and DCA is acting on behalf of Npower.

So this letter from DCA is maybe only the introduction letter to see if i am the person named there and after this they will send me the details about what i have to pay and to who.

Ok 1st mistake.

You left it to your landlord to sort out.. Not the landlords problem.

The landlord may of given your name.

Get a copy of the lease and see if it states your responsible for utility bills.

If it does not send a copy to NPOWER stating your not responsible for gas /electric bill and any further correspondence apart from acknowledgement of them not chasing you is considered as harassment and you WILL (not could) report you to relevent regulatory bodies and may take you to small claims court.

The landlord now is responsible.

Remember they wont get your new address confirmed as the lease will have the old one on

Unfortunately i don't have anymore my tenant agreement.

We rented the house from an agency specialized on letting.

When we rented it all 4 our names were on the paper so everyone signed the contract.

On the contract i can remember it said that we have to pay our bills separate, that means every 3 months i think.

Only thing paid by the landlord was the water.

The gas had a contract made by I DON'T KNOW WHO and WHEN which was saying

"The tenant from 25 Jimmy Road has to pay this electricity bill.".

That means we the tenants have to pay it but because it came with a very big sum of money somehow someone discussed with NPOWER and instead of giving us the correct bill it ended up ONLY myself has to pay the bill for the whole house and together with the old debt as well.

From my opinion all the legal tenants should've pay the debt not only me but this is another discussion.

I think the next step is to wait to see what i hear next from the letters from Wetclothes and to wait to see if i hear anything from Npower.

Is that what should i do?

I will assume now my name is John Doe and the letter is addressed to Jahn Loe.

How they found out that Jahn Loe is living in "24 Lescott Road"

because the papers like bank address, NINO address, University address is showing that John Doe is living on "24 Lescott Road".

Somehow they made some connections.. ?! Thank you very much

I think i'd forget about it

no-one can be responsible for a past tenants bill other than that person certainly not you.

so who supplied the gas whilst you all live there

and did the bills get paid?

Heya, i am coming back with a big update.

I spoke with one of the people with who i lived in that house.

What i found it can change the problem.

The provider is BRITISH GAS and not NPOWER.

Is this a game changing?

Maybe British Gas are more reasonable and they can help me with my problem.

As well i found out that we paid some bills but i think those were the electricity and the gas was the debt one.

I am starting to get worried now.

What do you think,

should i contact British Gas to ask for some information and then to explain them my case with the real proofs that i just moved to UK on September 2014.

So it was no point in putting the debt which came from the previous tenants.

I am waiting for your advice and i will conform.

I am very sorry that i mistakenly give the name of NPOWER, which in fact is British Gas.

I saw that British Gas has a live chat maybe i can speak with them?

doesn't really change anything

you cant be made responsible for a bill of a previous tenant.!!

Thank you very much to all of you.

Now i will wait the new letters from Wetclothes "to find out what it is about"

and then speak with you for the next steps maybe contact British Gas