Hi guys, sorry, have been away from home dealing with family illness. Will read through all your advice and questions and post responses asap. I have spoken with the charming BankFodder, and have a lot of things to do for him to get this dealt with. Thank you again for all your support & help with this.

The latest tenants upstairs moved in late May this year & are still waiting for a bill from nPower... I think everyone who has lived up there has struggled to get a leccy bill and in the end just not bothered to paid anything. The landlord has zero interest in this whole matter, he doesn't care about anything other than getting his rent. It took me nearly 4 years to convince him that the old single pane sash windows were worse than useless & I also spent months without a working boiler over winter one year because he 'forgot' to tell the plumber

Sorry....

Sorry I haven't updated sooner but this is making me feel so ill. Anyway, here's the email I received from Gerry: Hi Lisa You mentioned in the original post that British Gas supplied you prior to 2003, do you have a copy of a bill from them? In particular I need a note of the MPAN (Meter Point Administration Number) from then. The MPAN is a unique number to your property and does not change when there is a change of supplier or when a meter is changed. The industry records for the MPAN that Scottish Power are billing show that BG have never supplied the property & obviously you are stating differently. My colleagues have previously written to you to advise that British Gas have never supplied the electricity to the property and they have confirmed that to me today. You have also been advised that in 2003 we did agree a contract and that because of the passage of time we can no longer provide a copy of this, it simply does not exist anymore. However, it does not change the fact that Scottish Power have been and remain the registered electricity supplier. My understanding of the situation is that this was a house which was converted into 2 flats. There are 2 separate gas supplies neither of which is supplied by Scottish Power. However, there is only one electricity supply to MPAN 11 **EDIT OUT IDENTIFIER** and this is registered on the national database as Ground Floor Flat **EDIT OUT ADDRESS**. However there is NO separate electricity supply for the upper flat. This unfortunately is an issue for you to resolve with your landlord and/or upstairs neighbour. I realise that you have exhausted our complaints process and been through Consumer Focus and Ombudsman Services: Energy and you remain unsatisfied. However, we are a commercial organisation and we legitimately expect payment for energy that we have supplied. We want to try and help but to do this you will need to accept that we are the registered supplier and that we are entitled to payment. I am sorry if the tone and content of this email are disappointing to you, but we have to be realistic. We are happy to set up an extended payment arrangement to help cover the ongoing consumption and clear the debt. Kind regards Gerry My reply to Gerry is: Hi Gerry Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, yes, I did find your email very upsetting. This could have been solved many many years ago by SP admitting that my account had been taken over without my permission and letting me go back to British Gas. However, the situation is making me very very ill now so I would like it dealt with once and for all. The number in the grid at the bottom of the BG electricity bill is S 02 *** *** on the top line and 11 **** **** **4 on the bottom line (my scanner is broken). Do you need the customer reference for the BG electricity bill? The number in the grid on the SP electricity bill is S 01 *** *** on the top line and 11 **** **** **9 on the bottom line. The electricity MPAN number on a letter from Siemens is 11*** *** ****9. I hope this helps with your enquiries and I do appreciate your help. Regards Lisa I also have been in contact with Laura Whately at The Times and have emailed more details to my MP so he can contact SP too on my behalf. I know it sounds like I'm going for a 'belt & braces' approach to tackling this but I cannot cope with the stress of it anymore, especially now I am having chest pains.

I have gone through my box file quickly and I have found electricity bills from BG from 2004 & 2005, letters from SP to a Ms Sonia Lane at my address welcoming her as a new customer in 2007 & 2008 (nobody of that name has ever lived here), a letter from SP that states I signed a form but no proof of my signature. I will be back later with more info as I have to go to hospital now.

Right guys, I have had this response from my MP's office: Your email has been forwarded to me for attention. I have read your story with deep interest and some of the points simply amaze me. It's your responsibility to prove that you did not sign anything says the Ombudsman? That's almost as stupid as saying prove to me you've never been to the moon. The whole situation is a series of cock-ups and deserves to be exposed. I appreciate that you have a bill for £6k that is not your liability and time is critical in getting some action. I wish to suggest two things. Firstly invite the media in the form of the Chronicle and Echo to make an article of this and to challenge the claims of Scottish Power as a demonstration of your innocence. If they do run a story then the national press will pick up on it and expose SP for their incompetence. Additionally you might want to get the strength of Ann Robinson (Watchdog) on TV and her team to investigate matters and challenge the CEO of Scottish Power. Watchdog are looking for people with disputes with energy suppliers as their website states and I would imagine that your story is an interesting and deplorable one. http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/about/ Whilst there is a TV investigation they are more likely to suspend demands until everything has been sorted and hopefully in your favour. Certainly Mr Binley can write a letter to Scottish Power asking for an explanation but it may take weeks until they reply and even then there is no guarantee that they would reverse their decision against you. Locally, have you contacted the Citizens Advice Bureau or Community Law? Their numbers are CAB - 08448552122 and Com Law is 01604-636112. Please let me know if I can be of any further help and I'd be interested to learn what progress you have made. Graham Goldcrown (Senior Caseworker) Office of Brian Binley M.P. The White Lodge 42, Billing Road Northampton NN1 5DA 01604-633414 I sent him this reply: Thank you so much for your quick reply. I have contacted Watchdog several times over the years and most recently back in February but unfortunately had no response to my emails. I shall try the Chronicle and the CAB again as they said I had to deal with the Ombudsman first. I would certainly appreciate a letter to SP from Mr Binley as they will probably take more notice of him rather than me. ...and in the meantime I have heard back from Gerry but his email has just made me more upset & worried than ever. Am I allowed to put his email on here for you to read & advise me on?

Thank you all for your help, much appreciated. I have emailed Gerry now and my MP.

I will call them again, they were useless when this all kicked off & didn't want to know

I will double check that tomorrow, I have a big box file of papers, so it will take a while to go through them all.

Hi, the Ombudsman said I should accept the bill, and they would get SP to give me £150 off as a gesture of goodwill but I refused. So the Ombudsman has said I have to deal with it alone now. Will find out who my Mp is & contact them, thanks for that. Who would actually be able to put a hold on the WoE? The letter shoved through my door was a very badly photocopied template with my name added from Secus. My landlord is the worst landlord ever, he knows about the problems with the meters as last year we tried to get correct readings as there isn't a meter I can get to in my flat.

Thank you so much!!!

This situation has become horrendous but I will try to keep it short. Privately renting a flat in a converted house since 2001, my gas was & still is with British Gas, electricity paid via coin meter that landlord had installed. After a few years of the meter, I asked landlord to remove it which he did. I then had a Dual Fuel tariff with BG. Near the end of 2003, I suddenly start getting 'welcome' letters & bills from Scottish Power!! I rang to say I wasn't with them, as I wouldn't spilt my bills & cost myself more money but they refused to listen as I had apparently signed up with them. I asked for proof of this which they have never had or shown me. I have spent years trying to cancel the account that I never wanted & trying to go back to BG but SP just don't listen. They have been billing me for electricity but the meter serial number they have is for an address in the next street! I also have the problem that it seems that my meter/account is somehow attached to the flat upstairs which means that I am being held responsible for all the tenants who have lived up there too. I have been to the Ombudsman who agrees with me but who says as SP no longer have proof of my signature, the onus is on me to prove I never signed anything with them The bill is approx £6k at the moment. I am disabled & on benefits and have now had a warrant entry letter & I cannot deal with this anymore. Sorry to ramble but this is making me ill & I know it has gone on for too long but the Ombudsman took a year before getting back to me. Any advice & help very gratefully appreciated...

Thank you sillygirl1, I appreciate your help. Will add that to my letter. I really don`t understand how these people can think what they do is ok in any way, makes me sick.

Thank you so much, all of you. It helps a lot knowing I`m not alone in dealing with this ****.

Wow Brig, thank you so much. That sounds like a great letter, I shall get that done today and posted to them tomorrow. I just hope it works, nothing else has ever stopped them.

I`ve tried telling them that what they`re doing is harassment but they carry on. I wasn`t aware of the actual act though, thank you for that. They were sending all the letters to my Nan`s address and I could see how much it was upsetting her so when I wrote to them telling them to stop and that he`d never bought anything ever from the internet I gave them my address to shield her from it all. I hate them so much!! It feels like they are tarnishing his memory by accusing him of all this cr*p and lying all the time.

Phillips & Cohen.

Ok, I will do, thank you. I hate all this going on, I can`t sleep because of it. Thanks so much for your help.

Thank you so much for your quick reply. I should`ve said that I contacted them last year & the only advice they gave was to write to the DCA with a copy of the death cert & they were convinced that would put a stop to it all. It made no difference.

Hi, not sure if this is in the right place so please move it if need be. My Grandfather died in August 2010 and ever since then I have had endless letters and calls to my mobile regarding a debt he apparently owes to Phillips & Cohen. They are making me ill. As he & my Grandmother were never in debt ever in their lives & didn`t even have a credit card as they were `old school` & believed in saving for what you wanted, this matter is making me go crazy. They never bought anything with credit always cash from a shop. They have continued to call & send the letters to me after I have sent a copy of his death certificate and several letters to them asking them to stop but they refuse to acknowledge that his has died and want the money from his estate, I think it`s £200 now. We could barely afford his funeral & had to get help from the DWP to pay as he`d been ill with cancer for many years and had strokes/TIAs since 1998. All I can possibly even connect this to is an order I made online for him several years ago for some trousers which I paid for online with my credit card. As the order was going directly to him, I gave his address for delivery. If anyone can help put a stop to this I will be forever grateful. I`m getting calls from 8am every day until 9pm and every letter with his name on asking for money upsets me all over again. They have his first name wrong and are addressing him by his middle name. How can I get them to stop?