Alligator:I just thought Id' offer an update on this debacle. Despite receiving the email apologising for their error and an assurance that their credit control team had been asked to update the account, FU has now sent me two reminders for the unpaid bill. The second one used more aggressive language about the charges that will be applied if I fail to pay. I have written to them by email twice (and copied Stacey Roberts on the last one) and in each case forwarded their apology to me back to them, so far all I have received is their automated replies stating they've received my emails but absolutely no response from anyone even resembling a competent human being. Today I will be following up on my last email to them advising them that their lack of response means that I am now making this a formal complaint to be handled in accordance with the procedures. That starts the clock ticking for the regulator becoming involved.

My case against FU billing me incorrectly for an account closed 18 months ago has now been settled via the Energy Ombundsman. I was awarded £50. I have now received a total of £250 for the 3 complaints that I have needed to make over the last two years due to FU's total incompetance. As previously quoted, "Complain & Claim".

I just thought Id' offer an update on this debacle.

Despite receiving the email apologising for their error and an assurance that their credit control team had been asked to update the account, FU has now sent me two reminders for the unpaid bill. The second one used more aggressive language about the charges that will be applied if I fail to pay.

I have written to them by email twice (and copied Stacey Roberts on the last one) and in each case forwarded their apology to me back to them, so far all I have received is their automated replies stating they've received my emails but absolutely no response from anyone even resembling a competent human being.

Today I will be following up on my last email to them advising them that their lack of response means that I am now making this a formal complaint to be handled in accordance with the procedures. That starts the clock ticking for the regulator becoming involved.

Hi Erik

I got one of these emails recently telling me they were billing me too. This was months after I left FU for a new supplier. I just checked that my direct debit was cancelled with the bank and told them they were mistaken. They did eventually write back apologising.

As far as I'm aware they never attempted to take the money.

Dear All Futilityitis suffers,

Please see my previous messages. FU are still being incompetent. Fifteen months after 'escaping' from them with a zero balance I have now received a 'bogus' bill for outstanding charges. A complaint two weeks ago has gone unanswered. I can see another Ombudsman case on the horizon. My recent suggestion to you all to 'complain & claim' looks like being re-enacted by me. For my first claim I received £200. Will FU ever get their act together? I would like to re-iterate that I think OFGEM ought to close this business down.

I suppose I must count my self lucky as despite owing them £2k+ (because they have never invoiced me for electricty since I joined and not for gas for nearly 10 months) I have been permitted to move.

They have tried to take money from my account but the Bank has recredited it to me as they had not sent me a final bill/notified me.

So now begins the saga of trying to agree a final bill and to ensure I get all the disocunts I am due so a few pointers would be helpful.

1) I dont beleive they are a signatory to the 12 month backbilling maximum?

2) Can I refuse to pay any increases in price in the last 12/15 months since they never told me about them therefore I couldnt take advantage of the option to move if I didnt like the price hike? (NB my situiation may be different to others in that when I joined their systems couldnt cope with night/day electicity hence they couldnt bill me, but they changed my account in mid July and didnt tell me so I continued to submit readings to the old account but had on online access to the new one)

Any other useful tips welcome

Copy of letter I sent to Ombudsman today and cc to Mark Daeche at First Utility, just about sums First Utility up.

Dear Mr X,

Thank you for your decision letter dated 31st March 2011. There are however some points I would like to mention.

With reference to your third paragraph where you say First Utility applied the incorrect start reading the first reading for my electric was applied by them on my 12th September 2010 bill as 6473 this was almost two months after I gave them the start reading of 6479 on the 16th July 2010. The first reading for gas supply was on my 6th January 2011 bill as an estimate of 2950 a figure way above the origional start figure I gave them on the 16th July 2010 (actual figure was 2056 on 16th July 2010) This was almost six months after I gave them my start figure. Later in your letter (paragraph seven) you state First Utility state estimates were used as the readings provided by myself were outside the "reads window" if this was the case why does my bill dated 6th December 2010 show customer reads on 30/9/2010,

31/10/2010 and 30/11/2010. these were all within the read windows of last day of the month plus or minus two days! The only reading I did not give them was the one after my initial contact with them on 16th July 2010 because they never sent me a welcome pack and never set my account up online so I didn't know what the process was and even if I did the account was not set up on line to do anyway.

In your eighth paragraph you mention the inconvenience that has been caused by not having an accurate bill for eight months, is was more than just an inconvenience having to keep calling there customer service line on a number that is chargeable and being continually fobbed off with excuses, having to call debt collection companies to make sure they had been called off of completing there duties due to the incompetence of First Utility, calling the previous owner of the property to ask him to call First Utility as they said I was not registered he was , and having to keep calling my bank because First Utility kept telling me it was my banks fault that they couldn't take any payments from me. My bank told me the dd was set up correctly but they had never tried to take any money on it. This was borne out in later conversations I had with First Utility when they told me they had a few errors in there systems on collecting money.

Your ninth paragraph states you can find no evidence I had requested to have my supply billed to an online tariff rate, I do not understand this as First utility bill online and when I called First Utility on the 16th July 2010 they told me I would receive a welcome pack through the post with the prices, I am still waiting for this almost nine months later after many phone calls to them requesting this. You state your of the opinion I should understand the tariff I am on and the costs, how do you expect me to know the costs if after I have continually asked for them and they have never been sent. As I mentioned before the only tariff I knew about was the one advertised on there website that matched the description on the first gas bill I was presented with on 12th September 2010 on second page ( i save dual fuel ) This changed on my December bill to " i save v1.2" and it was at this point I immediately contacted First Utility to query and was told that from July I had been charged (although never billed!) a much higher rate than shown on there website. In light of the above I was misled by First Utility as I could not possibly know anything else.

You state its clear I have not made any payments towards my consumption, this is incorrect. I gave First Utility my account details on 16th July 2010 and the eventually took £215.84 as a first payment on dd on 24th December 2010 nearly six months after I gave them my account details. Therefore I feel to suggest I should have made some kind of regular payment is ridicules!

To recap First Utility failed to set my account up on the day I moved in to the property and called them, failed to send out a welcome pack or any tariff information despite the fact I kept requesting it. Failed to take any money from me on dd that was set up correctly shown by the fact they managed to take a payment on 24th December 2010, sent me two Bailiff letters after I had received red letters demanding payment that due to a technical error there end couldn't take, failed to bill me correctly although I had given them readings at the end of every month as required, failed to reply to my complaints in a timely manor, in short a very bad service and should this not be sorted out through yourself I will be left with no alternative than to claim for a sensible amount of compensation not the paltry £80 already suggested.

Regards

badfingers, I wasn't trying to imply you or anyone else WANTED free energy, so apologies if that's how my post came across.

Picking-up on your comments about not being billed for a long period of time and then getting a price increase backdated, engery suppliers MUST inform you of a tarif price increase within a relatively small number of days of applying that charge. Yes, they can backdate it but you can also elect to move supplier and if you give notice of such intent within a certain number of days of receiving the increase notification the supplier CANNOT apply those increases during the move period.

I accept that the amount owed to the supplier at that point may be quite large but equally, the customer should have some idea as to how much gas and electric is being used and hence, a rough idea as to the cost. I presume that payment is generally made by direct debit as this generally gets you the best tariffs. So, unless the monthly direct debit has been set too low there shouldn't really be a massive amount owing at any time.

My own issues with F.U. were solved relatively pain-free. I calculated how much gas and electric I'd used then applied the tariff rate I'd signed-up for and told them how much I'd pay. They still wanted to charge me the increased tariff rate during my move away from them but I refused. They sent threatening court action letters I responded by threatening legal action against them for harassment. Finally, they recalculated the bill correctly and the amount due was a couple of quid. Throughout this period though I paid them the true amount whenever I received their bills - not necessarily the amount they WANTED to charge me.

Had it gone to court they would have lost as I never witheld money correctly due to them.

badfingers:

... Don't bill or charge them for months, and in many cases years. Then backdate a nice, big, price increase. Poor saps can't change energy provider until the bill is paid off...

What has surprised me about this thread is what prominance for a company, which if the article I quoted is correct, only has 50,000 customers compared with millions for the "big 6".

I don't want to intrude into your spat with "Mike" who's point I would put slightly differently. An issue long discussed in the thread is how to (or in the case of some posters how not to) leave. A more recent energy issue (generally) is how to behave when a price increase is advised, even or particularly, if it is a retrospective increase.

The Consumer Focus leaflet I have linked to makes it clear that "unbilled energy" is not a reason for "debt-blocking".

http://www.consumerfocus.org.uk/files/2010/01/Debt-blocking1.pdf

Regarding advice of increase there is a notice period that can be used to avoid any increase being applied. There is reference to that in the leaflet above.

I repeat my general advice of a few post ago, switch to a supplier which is a signatory to the Billing Code, that's the "big 6" with the curious exception of Scottish and Southern Energy brands.

At no point have I seen this as an opportunity for free energy. That is purely an assumption on your part.

The recent posts seem pointless. It's perfectly reasonable for a company to "sign you up" as you agree to the contract. at the time of "signing-up". Failing to bill you for months is an administrative failing on the utility company's part but NOT an opportunity for "free energy" for the customer.

Do you posters seriously think that the absence of a bill through your letter box is hope for a remission from payment?

Why can't you check your own meter readings, pass this to the energy supplier and then monitor your own bills?

The issue, as I see it, is not the duplicity of the supplier, not even the stupidity of the customer..... it's simply the maladministration of the supplier in its failure to perform its contracted obligations.

As regards changing supplier until the bill is "paid off"...... if the bill is accurate you really DO need to pay it. If the bill is incorrect refuse to pay, elect to change and if blocked take legal action.

Seems like part of a bigger plan to me.

Sign people up to a nice, sweet, contract. Don't bill or charge them for months, and in many cases years. Then backdate a nice, big, price increase. Poor saps can't change energy provider until the bill is paid off.

Sounds like a business plan Enron could be proud of!

They are just about to bring in another large increase in their prices . This is sure to bring about another wave of customers leaving as happened last year after the July increases were brought in, and then backdated to everyone's amazement .

I see that First Utility is still in business. It is about time that OFGEM used some commom sense and closed this company down. Rogue traders should not be allowed to continue.

Boneys,

there might be a fourth option open to you. Seek legal advice (not OFGEM).

I strikes me that a power supply company should be expected to monitor, within a 2% tolerance (I believe) the true amount of gas and electric entering into a home/business. Them it also seems reasonable that the supply company should be able to accurately bill for that energy at a rate contracted with the customer.

See a solictor about how you stand regarding taking them to court.

Hi

I just wanted to add my bit, I had my smart meters installed in July 2010 9 months after signing up and endless chasing, after they were fitted FU increased their tariffs significantly (will post the percentages later) and back dated them to the beginning of the month that they sent me the notification, bit like the tax man saying by the way I've decided I want more tax from you and lets say we'll take it from last months salary cos I forgot to tell you then! So transferred gas and leccy (forgot to mention leccy was a few months late and yep you guessed not billed for several months following transfer) anyway transferred, meters installed, woo hoo, hold it meters no worky, several long calls to FUCS as I like to call em and apparently its a software issue and this goes on for 4 months so no bills. More calls and advent of outrageous bills so instruct my bank to close the door to any requests from FU for cash. Call FUCS to inform them that my sole objective is to pay for my Gas and Leccy when everything begins to work as it should and even make interim goodwill payments so I do not have to sell the wife when the bill does come in. Now here's the thing not only are my meters not working but the meter change over has not even been completed for billing purposes so a few crazy things happen here! 1)All estimated bills are taking guestimates from my old meters that are probably recycled tin cans now. 2) Because this transfer hasn't happened I will never be able to switch.3) I cant provide readings cos the metered billing is still on the old meters after neh on 7 months. I would love to say HELP but I think I MAY BE A LOST CAUSE.

So what are my options 1) reverse car into new meters to disable displays and put a total air of finger in the air guestimates for my energy usage. 2) Leave the Country. 3) Follow advice here and Involve OFGEN (which will involve time and effort)