Advice on dealing with Claimform via Co-operative Energy

[Alan1001]

I would welcome some advice on dealing with a Claimform I have received through the post, which was issued on 1 Feb 2017.

 

I intend to defend the claim but need advice on what I need to send back in the first instance and going forward how to prepare the defence.

 

The debt is with Co-operative Energy for Gas/Electricity supply and goes back to 2015.

 

We set up an account in Dec 2014/Jan 2015 and initially had no problems.

We set up the direct debit for payments and assumed everything was ok.

 

However, in September 2015 we received correspondence claiming the account was in arrears due to non-payment to the tune of £949.00.

 

I queried this directly with them as we had a direct debit in place and they should have been collecting payment automatically.

 

I also queried why they elected to not contact me for nine months before demanding payment.

They wanted to recover the whole amount and were unwilling to allow us to spread the debt over a number of coming months to ease the burden.

 

They eventually agreed to send us further documents to initiate a new direct debit to clear the debt which was again put in place.

We moved house in Jan 2016 but stayed with the same provider.

 

Things went quiet and we didn't hear anything until

 

we received correspondence from a debt collector (UK Search Ltd) around 3 August 2016 chasing payment.

 

This was not even sent to us at the new address but sent to my sister-in-law who was listed as an alternative contact address by our previous landlord.

The amount had inexplicably jumped to £1,412.49.

 

I contacted UK Search Ltd to ask why the debt was higher and requested a breakdown of where this amount had come from.

 

I also requested to be contacted direct rather than chasing me at my sister-in-law's address.

This took some time for them to implement.

They went away to get the amount clarified from Co-Op.

 

After a couple of weeks, I received a very brief statement of the outstanding amount.

I contacted UK Search Ltd and said it was insufficient as it did not clarify why there was an additional £500 on the debt or where it had come from.

 

They simply said that was the information that Co-Op provided and I had to pay it.

I refused to pay money beyond what I actually owed (£949).

 

I then received another letter saying they would offer me to pay £775 to clear the debt if paid by 5 Oct.

I tried to raise the funds as this seemed a good offer but was unable to raise the money in the three week period they specified.

 

They have emailed a couple of times and leave phone messages for me to contact them every day to which I have not responded. On February 4 I received a Claim Form dated 1 Feb 2017.

 

Please can you advise my next steps as I need to dispute the amount.

The amount claimed has risen again to £1,530.13 and with court fees and legal representatives cost now stands at £1,715.13.

 

I would be grateful for assistance as I intend to acknowledge service but want to defend it and require and help on my next steps please.

 

Thank you in advance.

[BankFodder]

The first thing you need to do is to find out is the entire history of the account and how they have calculated everything. This includes meter readings et cetera.

 

The way to do this is to send them an SAR. Do this tomorrow. You mustn't hang around because it takes 40 days for them to respond. Send the SAR accompanied by a cheque for £10 rather than a postal order because this will make it easier few to keep track of the progress of your application.

 

In the meantime, it's not clear from your story as to what information you have found out about the history of the account.

 

What has been happening about meter readings? Have they been meeting the meter? Are they estimated readings? Have you been providing them with readings? Have you been doing everything on the telephone? If so I suppose that you have mean recording your calls. Please can you let us know about all the paperwork you have here.

 

Send the SAR tomorrow. It is essential

 

Next thing you should do is to acknowledge the claim. Normally speaking you would have 14 days to return a defence. We need to buy extra time. You do this by filing an acknowledgement of the claim with intention to defend. This will give you a total of 28 days since the date of service before you have to file a defence. This will help you to start putting some ideas together – although it will not be in time for the satisfaction of the statutory disclosure request, but at least you will be on your way.

[martin2006]

Hi Alan,

As welk as sending a SAR as BF advises above, you must also do the following if you plan to challenge the claim:

 

Go to MCOL website

Log in using details on claimform

Acknowledge service of the claim

Tick defend all

Leave jurisdiction unticked

 

You should then log out, note that you must then submit a defence to the claim within 33 days from the date on the claimform. The date on the form being day 1 in the count, they are not working days for clarity.

 

Copy and paste to thread from the following link please and complete with answers for your claim.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?419198-You-have-received-a-Claim-What-you-need-to-do.-**UPDATED-2016

 

Finally send a cpr 31:14 to the solicitors acting for the claimant.

 

Normally the cpr 31:14 is set up for loan accounts or bank accounts, it may need a little adapting for use with utility suppliers.

[Alan1001]

The first thing you need to do is to find out is the entire history of the account and how they have calculated everything. This includes meter readings et cetera.

 

The way to do this is to send them an SAR. Do this tomorrow. You mustn't hang around because it takes 40 days for them to respond. Send the SAR accompanied by a cheque for £10 rather than a postal order because this will make it easier few to keep track of the progress of your application.

 

In the meantime, it's not clear from your story as to what information you have found out about the history of the account.

 

What has been happening about meter readings? Have they been meeting the meter? Are they estimated readings? Have you been providing them with readings? Have you been doing everything on the telephone? If so I suppose that you have mean recording your calls. Please can you let us know about all the paperwork you have here.

 

Send the SAR tomorrow. It is essential

 

Next thing you should do is to acknowledge the claim. Normally speaking you would have 14 days to return a defence. We need to buy extra time. You do this by filing an acknowledgement of the claim with intention to defend. This will give you a total of 28 days since the date of service before you have to file a defence. This will help you to start putting some ideas together – although it will not be in time for the satisfaction of the statutory disclosure request, but at least you will be on your way.

 

Thanks for the reply. I will send SAR tomorrow.

 

 

There has been little correspondence apart from what I listed above.

 

 

All the meter readings have been estimated I believe and I was not asked to take/provide meter readings at any time by Co-Op (apart from when we moved in and out of the properties).

 

What do I need to do with the Claimform?

 

 

It says I need to complete an acknowledgement of service form or defence form to the court within 14 days of the date of service?

[BankFodder]

As I said in my post, you should acknowledge the claim. After that we can see.

[Alan1001]

Thanks for the help BankFodder and martin2006. I have submitted the acknowledgement of the claim with intention to defend and will send off SAR to Co-Op tomorrow.

[BankFodder]

Please will you post the claim form here in pdf format

[dx100uk]

better you fill this in please:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?419198-You-have-received-a-Claim-What-you-need-to-do.-**UPDATED-2016**

 

 

we don't need to see the claimform

[BankFodder]

better you fill this in please:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?419198-You-have-received-a-Claim-What-you-need-to-do.-**UPDATED-2016**

 

 

we don't need to see the claimform

 

Actually I'm going to disagree here. It always makes me more comfortable to see original documents. We have had several instances of people giving us details or extracts of documents they have received but have inadvertently missed out important points because they haven't felt they were necessary.

 

A PDF upload of the claim form would be helpful.

[dx100uk]

oh yes we've seen that...too

[AndyOrch]

Thread moved to General Legal Issues.

 

Please continue to post here to your thread.

 

Regards

 

Andy

[Alan1001]

Okay, SAR went off on Friday. Here is the pdf of the claim form - had to wait to get into work to scan this.

ccj claim form.pdf

[dx100uk]

you need to follow the UPLOAD

and REDACT your pers details and any numbers like the claim no and the password too.

hidden but siteteam can see it.

[Alan1001]

Okay, thanks for the heads up, please find updated version

 

note - any advice on how to delete previously uploaded file?

ccj claim form.pdf

[dx100uk]

its already hidden as I said no one else can see it

[Alan1001]

I have not received reply from Co-Op about the SAR yet. Defence needs to be in by Monday. Any advice on what I need to submit even though I haven't received SAR documents yet?

[dx100uk]

defence is due by 4pm friday

[Alan1001]

So can this be done via email as I have less than 24 hours, or can I get apply for an extension?

[AndyOrch]

Claim was issued through MCOL Northampton..you should already be registered to do everything on line ?

[Alan1001]

DO you have any advice or details I can submit by email. Running very short of time now and have no defence at this point.

[martin2006]

Did you send the solicitors the cpr 31:14?

 

If you did and youve had no response or no documents to verify their claim then you look for a no paperwork/holding defence and edit it to suit the PoC on your claimform

[Alan1001]

No one told me to submit this CPR 31:14 to the solicitor. I assume that it's too late now as my defence needs to be in by 4pm tomorrow! Can I still send a CPR 31:14 tomorrow.

[martin2006]

Post #3 Alan

[martin2006]

you need a no paperwork/holding defence but edit out the cpr 31:14 bit and ensure that it corresponds to the Claim as per the POC.

[dx100uk]

send the cpr now

inc the cpr in the defence

 

 

cpr [use the current account one and rename the bits need to reflect its a lekky bill]

 

 

ask for all statements/bills

and a complete breakdown of the claimed amount.

 

 

we can deal with the defence tomorrow.