Troubles with utility bills caused by letting agency

[22sylvia22]

Hi,

Try to keep it as short as I can; have been renting my flat for 5 years; electricity cost used to be included in our rent as there was one meter for two flats (the other flat has no gas so I guess using a lot more electricity than we do, hot water heating etc, ours heated by gas). Then suddenly, about a year ago received a bill from N Power; rang the agency to find out why, was told that from then on we were responsible for elect bill. It happened right in the middle of the tenancy agreement. The agent did not deduct the electr money from our rent because it was not written in the contract, verbally agreed with the landlord. No problem, I thought.

First bill we received was for £300, clearly something was wrong; so we switched all the appliances off and the meter was still running. Called the supplier to sort out the matter, it turned out that the meter allocated to our names is actually for the second floor flat. Talked to the tenants who live upstairs and found out that their bill was still paid with the rent, why only changes to mine then? I rang the agent and wrote an email explaining what had happened, they never got back to me. Now we received a bill for £2500, lovely.

Just want to add that the agents also gave my name to EON, who are now chasing me for over £300 (funny thing is that they bill covers a few months in 2009 only; when asked EON who had paid the bills before that they said that previous tenants; it seems that 'ghost tenants' paid for the year 2005, '06, '07, '08; definitely it wasn't me!! B.G. has been our gas supplier since 2005; which isn't even in my name but my flatmate's. I have never been Eon's customer.

What do I do now? I've had enough of trying to explain it to EON, I called them a few times also send letters. Thought it was sorted out, no hear from them for 6 months, but it started all over again.

To be honest I am not happy with the fact that the agent gave our details to the utility company without informing us about it and doing it all wrong, getting us into all that trouble. Do they have the right to do that? Thanks for help.

[lordcrocket]

wow Im not sure of that but surely that would be a data protection issue now which may have caused you to be a victim of fraud against your name

[nottslad]

The utilities have a vested interest in the property and have a legitimate reason to request your details, it is therefore perfectly acceptable under DPA that the agent supplies your information to the utility supplier