Split the Bill - Demanding payment from us for service we didint use

[KellyG1]

Hello all, please we need help in deciding what to do about his issue with Split The Bill.

We are 3 student had a housing agent tenenacy we paid deposit for but we were let down by the agent last minute . 

 

We had to miss uni and sleep in Freind's house for about a month after school resumed because the flat was not ready as promised by the agent. 

Agent then try push us into a rundown flat in the menatime. 

 

But the bigger problem we have is while we were promised.we will move in we.made a mistake of contacting Split The Bills tto help us share and pay our uni accomodation bill as we were promised we will move in by the agent. 

Unfortunately for us . We never moved in .once we knew this we all agreed to email split the bill and camcell the agreement. Unfortunately one of us did not email them despite several calls to split the bill to explain our predicament as 1st year students who ended up being shafted by the accomodation agent. 

We are now landed with a demand from split the bill that the contract is legal and we have to pay. 

 

We argued to and fro and they still instating we pay about £291 each so just unde £900 from the 3 of us for a service we did not use and they did not even I stall as we did not move into the property. 

Can someone ease help advice us what to say to them please. 

 

Thier last email is till demanding the money and claiming we entered into a contract with them and have to pay up. 

I am a student and don't have that kind of money, please help what do I do. 

[KellyG1]

Please advise me on what to do. Another complexity is that one of us has gone ahead and paid them. Told us after he paid them. So do I have grounds to still dispute this demand now please or do I have to pay it. 

This seems unfair to me. 

[BankFodder]

Quote

Bill-splitting companies: Is the convenience worth the cost?

These companies target students and flat sharers, but we’ve discovered some key problems

 

https://wearecitizensadvice.org.uk/bill-splitting-companies-is-the-convenience-worth-the-cost-d4c7679734db

 

Quote

 

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.splitthebills.co.uk?languages=en&stars=1&stars=2

 

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02vhqoPUBbkhDrtoDysR2XTUttd5Q%3A1587965431030&ei=922mXum8AaiUlwTJ3L2ICA&q="split+the+bills"+review&oq="split+the+bills"+review&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIECCMQJzIGCAAQCBAeMgYIABAIEB46BAgAEEc6BggAEAcQHlCAyAFYo-cBYIPsAWgAcAJ4AIABQ4gBf5IBATKYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwiplLqb8IfpAhUoyoUKHUluD4EQ4dUDCAw&uact=5#lrd=0x48798283bd58dd25:0x311f3fa89270fe9,1,,,

 

 

 

Quote

Students at Manchester University have accused bill splitting companies of overcharging and being extremely difficult to get in touch with in a crisis.

Second and third year students arranging to rent shared houses have to navigate landlords, tenancy agreements, and managing shared expenses including utility bills. Most energy and utility providers expect a single payment per month. Dividing up multiple payments with different due dates between housemates can be stressful.

Some students choose to use bill splitting services like Glide, Split The Bills, Huru, and Fused. These services attract students by offering to make life easier by contacting providers and setting up student houses with electricity, water, gas, broadband and TV licences.

Some of these companies claim that their rates will be cheaper than those of the ‘big six’ energy suppliers like British Gas, Npower, SSE, EDF, Eon, and Scottish Power. They offer to keep tabs on due dates, chase up individual students for payments, and make budgeting easier by combining all bills and splitting them equally into regular monthly payments.

However, are these companies really worth it?

 

https://mancunion.com/2018/02/05/investigation-are-bill-splitting-companies-taking-you-for-a-ride/

 

 

Quote

Bill-sharing companies are giving us a splitting headache, say students

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bill-sharing-companies-are-giving-us-a-splitting-headache-say-students-6hj6lzwcp

[BankFodder]

Although it is no comfort to you now, I've posted a few links above to show you that these companies which claim they will ease the pain of having to split the bills between housemates, isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be.

I'm trying to understand your story little bit – but it doesn't seem to be explained enormously clearly.

I gather that there were three of you as part of this deal and that you decided to move in together. You had an agreement with the agent but the agent let you down because the accommodation wasn't ready. Please will you tell us the name of the agent. Did you penny deposit the agent and have you received all your money back?

You then decided to use the services of Split the Bills which is one of several companies which have set themselves up to manage bills on behalf of tenants. You signed up with Split the Bills before you moved in – but as in the end you didn't move in at all, you had to cancel the agreement. Two of you emailed and cancelled but one of you failed to email and as a result of that Split the Bills are saying that there is still a binding contract and you are now liable to pay £900.

Have you any idea what the £900 is for? Please could you post a copy of the bill in scanned PDF format so that we can all see. Redacted for identifiers. Also, have you got a copy of the contract which you signed with Split the Bills? Please could you post up a copy of that as well. In scanned PDF format please

 

And by the way, to give you a specific answer to a particular question you have asked – I can't imagine that the fact that one of you has paid money over to Split the Bills has at all committed the rest of you to paying anything – so don't worry. On the other hand, it has demonstrated a weakness amongst you which is unhelpful. I think it also tends to underline that using one of these companies doesn't make all the problems go away – especially if flatmates act independently, don't cooperate and don't talk to each other about what they are doing. That is the main problem between most arguments in a flatshare and you can see that using a company such as Split the Bills doesn't make these problems go away

[ericsbrother]

agree,

if there was no fulfilled contract with the landlord then you dont have any utilities etc to pay so you cant have run up  a bill of £900.

 

We would need to knwo why they are asking for this

- ie what have they done to fulfil their side of the bargain

and what the contract says regarding what they are offering 

andwhat they expect from you in return.

 

Someone else paying without a need to doesn't change the law on contract, they may well be able to get their money back

[KellyG1]

They are claiming we are still liable irrespective of us not moving into the property because they didint get the cancellation request from all the 3 of us before the cool off date. 

We did get our deposit back from the agent and the name of the agent is ....

They claim we have to pay the below breakdown which was higher but I kept on disputing it after them not responding to us for spells.I would contact them and they will not respond for long period and yes they r so difficul to get responses.from. 

Then after a few they mails to and fro they reduced the bill to the below amount and breakdown. 

We cancelled in Mid November once we knew we would not get the flat  but for some reason the bill they sent us is saying 10th of Jan 2019. 

I will send copies of their response to my email challenging them.on the proposed bill. Following 

 

[BankFodder]

Sorry but you seem to be referring to documents which you haven't uploaded.

 

 

Thanks but these need to be scanned up in PDF format please. We need a single document – multipage single file PDF. Thanks

[KellyG1]

Hello, I'm unable to scan them in as pdf I am afraid. 

Lockdown and we all at home not able to access printers to scan the document. 

It was actually Their email and copies of the bills. 

Apologies for any inconvenience. 

So pls try and manage the copies attached from my phone. 

[BankFodder]

All you have to do is download adobe scan onto your mobile phone and you will be able to do it.

We very happy to help and we are pretty good at what we do and it's all free. On the other hand we need you to help us to help you by providing information in a format which we can deal with and which is fully legible.

 

Also, you clearly do have the documents in electronic form so if you don't use Adobe scan then you will find a PDF converter on the Internet without without too much difficulty

[KellyG1]

Pls find attached. 

I hope I did it right

 

Split d bill.pdf

 

[KellyG1]

I have attached the bill breakdown as Adobe and also their email corrwpondemce. 

Please see above and let me know what u advise. 

This is really stressing me.out. And I just need.to know If within law I have to pay or if this is unfair of them to try to get money out of us.in such a case and manner. 

Regards. 

[BankFodder]

I'm trying to get my head around this – and I have to say that I'm finding it a little complicated.

My first piece of advice is that you should not pay anything at the moment – but keep us informed as to any correspondence you receive.

This is going to take some working out.

You say that two of you did email a cancellation but one of you didn't. Please could you supply me with a copy of the cancellation emails which was sent. I'd like to see the actual wording.

The next thing, is that you have referred to the agent. What is the name of the agent?
Although they returned the deposit to you, they seem to have been the cause of the entire problem – haven't you thought about bringing them in and making them responsible? They might be a reasonably easy target. They clearly have cause you a lot of inconvenience and also expense. They cause you no doubt some direct losses and also some indirect losses in terms of some of the money which might legitimately be owed to Split the Bills – although it is difficult to understand why Split the Bills are demanding quite so much.

For instance, there is the electricity fee of £228. How come there is a bill for electricity for a domestic contract – when that electricity hasn't even been used? Which electricity company is it?

Also, there is the years fee to PlusNet. I don't understand why you are being required to pay a years fee for this service. Has somebody else moved into the property now? Are they using the broadband there? I think it would be useful for you to find out. If somebody else has moved in and they are using the plus net broadband then somebody is making double the money for the same service.

Please bear in mind that I'm still finding the whole thing very complicated. I don't really understand the dealers with Split the Bills – other than it was a very bad idea. Also, one of the reasons why people go for these kinds of management companies is in order to relieve the tension between flatmates – but immediately, one of the most important areas – the cancellation of the contract – you allowed yourselves to trust the third flatmate who in fact is that you down by not sending the cancellation email. Big fail – and yet that is what Split the Bills is meant to protect you from.

You can see at the end of the day or a risky service it is.

 

[BankFodder]

Also, where have you gone to live now? Do you have a broadband at your new accommodation? Were you not given the opportunity to transfer the plus net account to your new accommodation?

[KellyG1]

Hello, where.we went to live had broadband already when we got there and so we couldn't bring along the split a bills agreement. Hence the complication and at this point it had got so complex we didint really want.to continue with them. 

We realised it was a very bad idea at this point, as it was so complex and they were literarily trying to rip us off. 

 

So please advise. I have no other correspondence apart from the last one where they are still demanding payment. 

 

I did in my previous email. 

Michaela property. 

They are notorious and have been totally unable to communicate with them 

 

[BankFodder]

Is it this rental company? https://www.michaelsproperty.co.uk/

 

[BankFodder]

Okay I'm trying to form a clear idea of what has happened here – because I'm still confused in lots of places.

When did you first agree with the rental company to move into a certain flat? Are we talking about the beginning of the academic year in 2019? Please give a date.

Then I understand that in the reasonable expectation that you would be moving in on a certain date promised by the agent, you decided to get utility bills et cetera in your name. You decided to try and avoid problems by putting it into the hands of a management company – in this case, Split the Bills.
I don't understand how this works. Does this mean that all the accounts are in your name? Or the accounts are in SB name? Who is it who becomes the customer?
I notice somewhere on the website of Split the Bills that they say that they don't charge you any fee. Is that right? How do they make their money then?

The various utilities were installed at the beginning of the academic year but then you are given the runaround. You ended up not taking up the flat and eventually you gave notice of cancellation to SB about three months later. Is that correct?

Now SB say that they have incurred one year of broadband – because it wasn't cancelled within the cancellation period
almost £300 worth of energy – despite the fact that nobody lived there. Is that correct?

[KellyG1]

The agreement with STB was with 3 of us, and they claimed that because they did not receive confirmation from all three (recieving 2/3 by email) that we wanted to cancel the service, we ended up going past the cooling off period on that basis. This was the beginning of academic year 2018 and the first email sent to them to cancel our service was sent one day after our internet was remotely activated by plus net. This email was sent on the 16th October 2018 and we did not receive any response for three weeks.

 

Following this, they received another email from the second of three tenants requesting that they (split the bill) cancel our service which also did not get a response. After trying to contact them on numerous occasions, we finally received some contact from split the bill on the 6th November 2018 only for it to be an invoice showing the payments owed for the second month of our agreement. Taking into account we had tried to reach them on many occasions in the period between the 16th October and the 6th of November to no avail. 

 

In regards to the rental company Michaels Property, that whole situation was very bad as they promised us a property initially on the 1st September 2018. This date was constantly pushed back from the 1st to the 20th, up until the point where they told us that the property was still occupied by tenants and they didn't have the power to remove their goods? At this point we had already signed tenancy agreements and paid the relevant moving in fees to Michael's Property. 

[BankFodder]

Thanks. Are you able to get the emails from the others please. I think we need to assemble a file of information here. I think it's worth it because there is a fair bit of money at stake. Who's the person who has paid money? Is it the person who also didn't send the cancellation?

I think we need to get a chronology established here.

The date of the agreement with STB was X X X?
two of you sent emails cancelling them on X X X date?
STB emailed you and tell you that they had received nothing on X X X date?
you sent STB an email cancelling the broadband activation on X X X date?


Apart from the losses which which have allegedly been incurred by STB – what losses would you say that you have incurred (three view) as a result of Michael's Property breach of contract by failing to provide you with the agreed accommodation on the agreed date? Where you put two extra expense or simply extra inconvenience?

Please will you detail the expense
please will you detail the inconvenience

[KellyG1]

In addition to Michael's Property, after the promise of a move in date of 20th September now being compromised, they gave us the option of temporary accommodation because at this point we were about to start the next term of university and needed to be near campus. On the 1st October (uni start date), we received an email from Michael's Property stating that and I quote "due to the amount of work that may be needed with the turn around on the current tenants handing back the keys and then the necessary cleaning etc to get the boys into the property may take longer than initially expected, although the property is empty and the boys will be moving in, the stress on the time line is not what we were hoping". They then told us that the landlord has a 6 bedroom property in a different location (further from the uni) that was and I quote "all ready for them to move in today subject to signing a temporary agreement".

 

We were not stuck between a rock and a hard place as we had no other option to take what we thought was just a house further away from the university and not all of what it turned out to actually be. 

 

Now, we were told that this temporary accommodation was ready for move in, so without having much choice we chose to take the temporary accommodation whilst they sort out the property we had already paid for. On arrival of the temporary accommodation we instantly noticed that we had been put in a property that was in a derelict condition, without gas/heating or any sign of cleaning or occupation within the last 4 months, and we knew this because of the letters scattered around the property dated back to August and the number of unopened letters in the doorway. It took as a while to find out how to switch on the lights as we were initially met with darkness.

 

As well as this the property was filthy with dead fly's sitting on the window ledges and kitchen counter, spider webs all over the kitchen a huge gap in the fence which was a big health hazard as anybody could have easily walked through and gained access to the property. The worst part was that there were still people's belongings in the rooms i.e boxer shorts, shoes, beddings it was a horrible experience and the three of us had no choice but to stay there for that night as Michaels property had closed for the day and we had no way of contacting them. This meant INITIALLY a night with no central heating or hot water, a functional kitchen and just normal living conditions in general.

 

The next day we contacted Michael's property and they insisted that it was to their knowledge that the property had been checked and was ready for use but that was clearly a lie as the property had evidently not been occupied for many many months. We demanded that the least they could do was fix the central heating as we were left to sleep in a very cold house in October and a few days later a technician was sent to the house to fix the radiators. This them cause a MASSIVE leak as water began pouring through the ceiling down into the kitchen and really I couldn't believe my eyes.

 

I have a few videos that show us entering the property and the conditions we were met with. Unfortunately I feel it would be too large to attach to this comment but I am happy I decided to record the first entering of the property

 

A week later on the 9th of October we were still bring reassured that the initial property was still going to be delivered to us but at that point living in the temporary accommodation had become unbearable and we took up the option given to us of a full refund and this was on the 11th October.

 

Luckily we came to an agreement with East Links to let a 5 bedroom property to the 3 us and this agreement began on the 20th October. Correlating with the cancellation dates with Split the bills you can see that as we were coming to a new agreement with East Links we decided that continuing with Split the bills was not the best option to take as their was a possibility of further incurred fees due to the switch of property.

[stu007]

Hi

 

Welcome to CAG

 

Had a good read of your PDF in post#12 and the big thing that stands out to me is they basically stated they have activated certain accounts i.e. electric, broadband etc. so exactly what evidence/proof have they supplied you that this has been done i.e. copies of the contract with each supplier?

 

I would suggest sending this lot a Subject Access Request (SAR) ensuring to ask for 'ALL DATA' that simple phrase covers whatever format they hold it in whether it be phone calls, texts, emails, written etc and they have 30 Calendar days to respond from acknowledging reciept of your SAR request. (note the 30 Calendar days can be extended if there is an issue verifying your Identity (ID) so be aware of this)

 

At the same time write a separate letter requesting copies of the Contract/Agreement for each individual Supplier they have setup accounts for on your behalf (how do you know they have actually setup up these contracts/agreements with the different suppliers)

[BankFodder]

I'm still trying to make head or tail of this. You seem to be very good at producing narrative but not much good at producing the chronological bullet pointed account that I've been asking for.

The style is fantastic for producing 15,000 word essays – but not particularly for getting to the point.

This is what I have gleaned so far:

 

Quote

Contract with Michael property for a flat share – three people

20 September 2018 – scheduled move in date

X X X date 2018 contract with Split the Bills to commence X X X date??

1^st of October 2018 email received from Michael property stating that property was not ready

1^st of October 2018 temporary accommodation offered by Michael property

9^th October 2018 temporary accommodation unbearable, decided to quit.

11^th October full refund offered

20^th October agreement for new property

X X X date – cancellation notice given to Split the Bills

as you can see, there are some dates missing – maybe you provided them already but it has been difficult to tease it out of all of the stuff you have written.

From something you have written somewhere, I'm starting to form the impression that you may have given the quick notice to Split the Bills but that they don't seem to have recognised this. Is this correct?


 

[KellyG1]

We sent them our cancellation and they are not accepting it because they said it's just from 2 of us not the 3 of us. 

Please I need support and advise on how.to resolve this issue . 

So ease help advise 

[BankFodder]

I'm sorry but you are making this very difficult to deal with. On April 29 – which is about seven days ago, I asked you some questions and you haven't addressed them.

In fact I initially asked you the question on 28 April and you only answered partially.

We really need to have a proper chronology so that the story is completely explained. If you are trying to tell this story to some friend over a drink – they would still be asking you questions because they still wouldn't understand.

The refusing to accept your cancellation. Ignore them for the moment. Stand your ground. At the end you are going to challenge them to take their own action. I wouldn't worry about it – but of course it will help us if you tell us the whole story and I don't understand why you won't

[KellyG1]

I have told the whole story as I can. 

When you say chronologically, you asking for dates and times which I feel I have already sent in my detailed emails. 

But it seems you just want me to give you the specific dates only. 

I will try put that together. 

I hope you understand that this hasn't been easy for me also. 

[BankFodder]

I'm terribly sorry – but it isn't clear to me. Maybe it is clear to somebody else and I'd be grateful if they would come along and explain it. Maybe it's just me being slow on the uptake.

I get the impression that Splitbills required a certain cancellation notice and that you have said somewhere in this thread that you complied with that notice period but somehow or other the messages appear to have been lost or have gone unacknowledged so that Splitbills now say that you cancelled outside the contractual notice period. Is this correct?

If it is correct, think please can you give a chronology of the various dates. If it isn't correct then please could you give a chronology of the dates that these things actually happened – contract, the expiry of the notice period, when notice was actually given.