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No Gas Bills....but now a letter


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I've lived in my property for a while now, and have never received a gas bill.

 

I did phone up after a few months, as they they also supply my electricty which I had a query about so asked them when I could expect my first gas bill, and I got passed around a couple of departments,

 

eventually spoke to someone who took my details and then put me on hold,

and after what seemed like an eternity, eventually gave up and put the phone down.

 

And no bills ever materialised.

 

But now I've received a letter from them addressed to 'The Occupier', which says they 'notice there could be a gas supply at this address' and that it needs to be registered; that they can set up an account for me, but I'm 'free to choose any supplier you'd like'.

 

I was a bit surprised by the somewhat 'laidback' tone of the letter, but then wondered if this was just their way of encouraging people to contact them, before hitting them with a huge backdated bill.....

 

I've contacted the National Grid and now have my MPRN number, but they don't seem to have a record of who the supplier is.

 

Can anyone advise me on what I should do now, and what to expect?

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what do yo mean by lived there a while?

ideally its your responsibility to phone the supplier when yo moved in an give readings and say you are going elsewhere

or set up accounts with them.

 

 

have you the readings from when you moved in?

then at least you wont get done over?

please don't hit Quote...just type we know what we said earlier..

DCA's view debtors as suckers, marks and mugs

NO DCA has ANY legal powers whatsoever on ANY debt no matter what it's Type

and they

are NOT and can NEVER  be BAILIFFS. even if a debt has been to court..

If everyone stopped blindly paying DCA's Tomorrow, their industry would collapse overnight... 

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''ideally its your responsibility to phone the supplier when yo moved in an give readings and say you are going elsewhere

or set up accounts with them.''

 

As I say in my opening post, according to the National Grid there is no supplier.

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no excuse, you obviously know you are using the energy.

you cant expect it to be free until you decide to question why nothing has happened.

please don't hit Quote...just type we know what we said earlier..

DCA's view debtors as suckers, marks and mugs

NO DCA has ANY legal powers whatsoever on ANY debt no matter what it's Type

and they

are NOT and can NEVER  be BAILIFFS. even if a debt has been to court..

If everyone stopped blindly paying DCA's Tomorrow, their industry would collapse overnight... 

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Has anyone else got any knowledge or experience of this type o situation?

 

The process that exists goes back to when energy was privatised. In each area of the country there is a default supplier, where for new builds or new supplies, if you don't register with one company, you will get the default supplier writing to you. It is then a choice of whether you take the offer of registering with that default supplier and negotiate with them the best tariff for your needs or you go with another supplier. You will be charged backdated up to 12 months ( backbilling rules) for usage based on standard tariff and going forward based on any tariff deal you sign up to.

 

If you continue to live in a gas supplied house without paying, the default supplier will eventually apply to Magistrates for a warrant to force entry, where they assess your house and install a prepayment meter. The meters which have a higher tariff will no doubt also have any bill arrears added, so when you topped up the meter you paid for back usage,

 

You need to respond to the letter and get it sorted.

We could do with some help from you.

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''You will be charged backdated up to 12 months ( backbilling rules)...''

 

 

Doesn't this rule only apply when you can show that you've made attempts to retify the situation? And as I mentioned, I only called them once to tell them I hadn't yet received a bill.

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''You will be charged backdated up to 12 months ( backbilling rules)...''

 

 

Doesn't this rule only apply when you can show that you've made attempts to retify the situation? And as I mentioned, I only called them once to tell them I hadn't yet received a bill.

 

One phone call should be enough and they failed to send you a bill. The whole process is designed so domestic customers in this situation are protected by such mistakes.

 

If this is a new house or you have moved into an existing house, there should have been some communication from house builder or previous occupier to an energy supplier about the meter situation and letters should then have been sent to your address. When i bought my house, the default suppliers were NPower for electric and British Gas for gas. I have since moved my supply to different cheaper companies.

 

Is this a new house or new gas supply or have you taken over the house from previous occupiers who used the gas supply ?

We could do with some help from you.

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If I were you I would get evidence that you have tried to make contact and also that you have been told that there is no supplier. You should do this at least by telephoning again and recording the call. You should ask for confirmation in writing – preferably by email.

 

If you don't do this, then when everything eventually hits the fan – as one day it certainly will, then frankly no one will believe you.

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Has anyone else got any knowledge or experience of this type o situation?

 

My sister, many years ago moved into a flat with a gas supply.

She made many failed attempts at identifying the supplier, and was told many times that there was no record or even a gas supply in the property.

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One phone call should be enough and they failed to send you a bill. The whole process is designed so domestic customers in this situation are protected by such mistakes.

 

If this is a new house or you have moved into an existing house, there should have been some communication from house builder or previous occupier to an energy supplier about the meter situation and letters should then have been sent to your address. When i bought my house, the default suppliers were NPower for electric and British Gas for gas. I have since moved my supply to different cheaper companies.

 

Is this a new house or new gas supply or have you taken over the house from previous occupiers who used the gas supply ?

 

No, it's not a new house, but the gas supply was new. Does this make any difference?

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If I were you I would get evidence that you have tried to make contact and also that you have been told that there is no supplier. You should do this at least by telephoning again and recording the call. You should ask for confirmation in writing – preferably by email.

 

If you don't do this, then when everything eventually hits the fan – as one day it certainly will, then frankly no one will believe you.

 

I don't think I'd be able to get any sort of record of my call. The letter asks for the MPRN sso if I give them that, they should also be able to tell there is no supplier. But then again, they obviously have their suspicions about that already since they've written to me saying they believe there is an unregistered gas supply at the address.

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Who installed the gas supply ?

 

Whoever it was, should have registered the MPRN with a supplier.

 

How long have you lived at the address with no gas usage being billed ?

 

Have you received letters before this recent one ?

 

I would suggest that unless you are due to move out shortly, that you bite the bullet and register yourself. Tell them that you have reported this before, but drew a blank making enquiries, as it did not seem to have been registered properly.

 

When you sort this out, hopefully limited to a years backbilling only, they will normally accept a repayment arrangement over a decent period and not a lump sum.

We could do with some help from you.

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I think it was installed by contractors working on behalf of one the large energy companies.

 

One thing that was a bit strange was that after the meter had been installed,

the same day, some salesman visited my property to get me to sign up with a different company to the one I thought had installed it.

 

 

I told him I wasn't interested, but that might go some way into explaining why the meter was never registered with a supplier.

 

And no, this is the first letter the company have sent me about suspecting there's an unregistered gas supply at the property.

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You are being a bit vague, not answering ALL questions put to you.

 

Do you own the house or are you just renting it ?

 

From what i understand, when they are installing new gas supplies, the owner of the house completes relevant forms and there is a survey carried out to make sure the house is in a proper state to take the supply. Once the meter is installed, they leave the house owner with paperwork about registering the supply for billing etc.

 

If you don't register the supply, you will get a letter saying that a warrant from Magistrates will be obtained and they will force entry to the house whether you are in or not. They will instal a prepayment meter, possibly with a debt added, so that a percentage of what is credited goes towards any debt.

We could do with some help from you.

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Sorry, I don't mean to be vague but I am aware that companies may monitor these sites so I'm wary about divulging too much information that might help them to identify me.

 

I live in rented social housing.

 

There was definitely no survey carried out or any paper work left with me after the meter installation.

 

Out of interest, if a supply isn't registered how can any company claim you have been using 'their' gas? I mean, could several companies legitimately make the same claim?

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I believe it is within the legislation that was applied when gas and electric was privatised, that anyone living in a house using energy is automatically legally liable to the default energy company for your area. In many areas for gas, it will be British Gas. They can take you to court for the debt amount owed for your usage.

 

If you live in social housing, i would suggest you speak to whoever you rent from e.g Housing Association or council. They will have organised for the gas supply to be installed and they should have been in contact with you about registering to pay an energy company for your usage. It seems something has gone wrong.

 

You CANNOT hide from this. The longer you leave this, the worse it will get. Do you really want to face being taken to court or having your home being broken into by energy company enforcement ? You might also breach the terms of your tenancy if there was forced entry and there might be consequences. Hence why you need to speak to whoever you rent from and get the gas billing sorted out as soon as possible.

We could do with some help from you.

PLEASE HELP US TO KEEP THIS SITE RUNNING EVERY POUND DONATED WILL HELP US TO KEEP HELPING OTHERS

 

 Have we helped you ...?         Please Donate button to the Consumer Action Group

 

If you want advice on your thread please PM me a link to your thread

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