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ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

Sound very much like something thats happened to me twice now.

One moves into a new place, one notifies the gas, electric and so on, and the next thing, one has a bill for the unpaid arrears for gas or electric of the previous tenant, with one's name on. The last tenant skipped out without paying, so you can pay their debt to us.

There then follows a couple of months of really nasty phonecalls from shitheads at a debt collection agency who will not talk about the matter and refuse to even consider what one is saying. Then come to letters from the lawyers, who are equally unreasonable. I only settled my two cases by writing to the CEO of the two gas companies involved - I also complained about the harassment and stupidity of their subcontracted debt collection function - and he cancelled their contract, though I presume more than I complained.

Another one! One of the directors of my company moved into a house ten years ago. For six years, despite asking, he never received a single bill for electricity. Then suddenly, a bill for close on GBP 5000-00 (USD 10k) arrived, for the whole period. Payable within 30 days. The six years thing is interesting, because this is the legal time limit for claiming payments due - after six years they become null and void in most cases. Again he found talking to the monkeys a waste of time and escalated it to director level - he negotiated for less than half in the circumstances and to pay it over a year.

And yet another! We have a consumer affairs programme on TV here - sorting out dodgy companies and so on. We also have what's called a competitive market for gas and electricity - one can buy the same supply, through the same network, from dozens of different companies, at different tariffs. (Another Tory triumph). Anyway, there have been multiple cases featured on the programme, of people switching suppliers, yet still being billed by their old supplier - and even being taken to court over it to claim payment. None of the efforts of these people to get anything resolved at the call centre level have had any effect whatever - but a call from the TV programme to the directors of the suppliers concerned, and its all sorted.

The moral of the stories is, to escalate this to the very highest level, right now. Forget the call centres, forget the junior under vice president for consumer relations even, go straight to the CEO at the registered office, in writing. He/she will have a duty to deal with it and the power to get it sorted immediately.

E