Hopefully not a tricky one. Sorry for the long post but the history to my question is quite complex and thought if i wrote it down it might help people understand this one easier.

When I moved into my house in 1999 I was originally on an old card meter. I stayed paying this way for 3 years then decided to pay by direct debit. I contacted powergen as they were known then and they arranged an amount to pay each month of £33. Now at the time I thought that was low and told them this but they assured me that it was correct which I believed as I had been with them for 3 years and surely they must have known my usage.

That is when the problems started, not only was I paying monthly but every quarter I got a bigger bill through. I paid that off and they increased my monthly bill. This carried on like this for 3 years in the same manner. pay monthly then get big bill pay it off etc etc. It got to the point where they were claiming that my payments should be £124 a month. This I totally disputed with them and said there was no way I was paying my last bill of £400. I told them I wanted to go back to a card meter so that I could prove to them that I wasn't going through that much electric.

I was put back on a card reader in january 30th 2007. I kept receiving bills through every quarter saying that my meter had been read and these were the charges etc. My payments on my card were shown as credits to the account even though i was paying for what i was using. This has carried on for 2 years without them sending out a letter saying I must pay immediately until december 2008.

On the 4th I received a letter stating that i must pay £320 immediately, I took no action, on the 14th i received a bill stating that I owed £288, again I took no action with the pretence that I would sort it out over xmas holidays. on the 19th i yet again received a bill this time for £480. On the 2nd january I received a letter from a debt collection agency saying I owed £560. I phoned them up straight away and they said that I actually only owe £540 and they would be coming to fit a card meter to take the repayments from.

Now this I thought strange as I have been on a card meter for 2 years and I said that to them and they said there was nothing they can do and to ignore any further correspondance from them and passed it back to e-on. I phoned e-on later that day and got them to admit that they had only just updated the system to show that I was on a card meter and that I would get money refunded. They also said that I actually now owe over £600

Now for the interesting bit as to where i'm getting to.

On the phone the representative admitted that the meter should have been set up from day 1 to take £5 a week extra to pay off my old debt outstanding at the time. Seeing as that wasn't done and i will quote this " we are unable to claim back money owed to us more than a year old due to a fault occuring our end" she let me have off £245 straight away which was money that should have been collected from the time the meter was installed to a year ago (49 weeks of non-payment).

This started me thinking seeing as the debt itself is over a year old and i did not enter into an agreement of repayment either verbally or written and have not received any documentation from them about repayment does it also apply that I owe them nothing as the original debt is over a year old? Plus I don't think they know whats going on with my account as it wasn't updated about my change to card meter and seeing as I had 6 bills through in a month all showing widely ranging amounts that I apparently owe.

Where do I stand on this??