Swalec bill passed to LCS

[Chris]

I am a student who was forced to leave my previous rented accommodation, with 2 friends, due to a hostile atmosphere among housemates.

In total there were 8 of us living there: myself and the 2 friends, 2 guys and 3 French girls who returned to France shortly before I left. Before leaving I got in contact with Swalec to arrange payment of the gas bill. The person on the phone assured us that if we pay 3/8ths of the bill then our names would be removed from the bill. We paid instantly by card over the phone.

We received another bill at the new accommodation for the remaining 5/8ths. After a number of phone-calls we were assured that we just needed to post a contract as proof that we had moved out. I posted my joint contract with the 2 friends right away.

We then received a third bill at the new accommodation. After phoning up we were informed that we needed to pay a little more as we left part way through a quarter. I asked if we could receive a bill for 3/8ths of the difference between the current bill and the previous bill. We were assured that wouldn't be a problem.

On Thursday, 5th November 2009 I received a letter from LCS (Addressed to myself and 1 of the French girls) asking for the full bill plus a 15% admin fee.

I've phoned both Swalec and LCS. I asked Swalec why our name's havn't been removed from the account and was informed that they never split bills up and no-one would ever give that impression. I asked LCS why there were only 2 names on their bill and was told that they could only find details for the 2 of us.


Does anyone have any advice for what I should do?

My current plan:

• Phone (failing that, write to) Swalec asking that they take back the debt and the admin charge as it is entirely their fault that we are at this stage.
  
• Visit local Citizens Advice Bureau to ask for advice.
  
• Hunt down the addresses of the 2 guys I used to live with and attempt to get them back on the bill.
  
• Visit small claims court to try and get money out of old landlord (for failing to deny the French girls their deposits due to not paying utilities, as he did with us) and the 2 other guys.
  
• Ask university for financial support. I can't possibly afford this bill and it is ridiculous that I should pay anything more than I already have.
  

[Webmaster]

Personally I would write to Swalec and send a copy to LCS, both by recorded delivery, explaining the situation again, saying you'll be making no further payment and that's your final position on the matter.

Do not include your phone number in the LCS copy - they will abuse it.

Do not expect LCS to respond as they don't actually read letters - you're sending them a copy just to cover yourself. LCS will continue to send the standard automated letters for a while yet. Don't be tempted to pay it to make LCS go away - stand your ground.

How much money do LCS say is owed?

[adelin3]

i have the same problem, we lived like 8 in the house and they could only track me and my partner down. they said at the phone that they have evidence of us living there, and nobody else, even we don't have any signed agreement with the landlord or with British gas. now they want us to pay an outstanding bill of 1100 pounds, because the ones entitled to pay they ran out with our money, and it looks like they never payed any bills in fact. i m sending to them a threatening letter as well. the beginning is like this:


I am writing you regarding the recent case you opened against us, which I found an offence to myself and my partner, and which caused me a lot of emotional distress. The letter we received from you on (date) was extremely bewildering, as we have been accused that, following some rough “investigations” (sic), we’ve been found responsible of the consumption of the supply of (sum) pounds, between (dates)
I do confirm that we lived there between (...dates....) (therefore just 4 months; I do not remember exactly the date we moved in, as we did not sign any contract). If you consider yourself unable to “track” our previous locations, then we are willing to helping you, by scanning relevant documents which clearly reflects were we lived between (........dates...........)(tenancy signed agreements, utility bills, bank statements etc. However, as you seem to me to be fishing for details, I m treating your letter very precautious, and I am reluctant in sending private documents to your corporation until I will do more research about it. I have nothing to hide but neither do I have time to waste on what appears to be a scam). However, if you really are investigators, then we are completely, COMPLETELY shocked that you don’t know these locations already…This evocative gap of information in your understatement tells us a lot about your so called investigation…
As I am a psychologist and I currently study Investigative Forensics at a master level, I believe that I have some pertinent knowledge about what an investigation involves. The arrogance and outrageous injustice which streamed from the letter received from you upsetted us a lot, and the fact that now I find myself in the embarrassing situation of exogenerating myself for your lack of investigation skills is a disgrace.

[adelin3]

And then comes some details about the other tenants.
Now the end of the letter:
I also suggest you to gather witness statements, as I m sure that the neighbors are pretty well aware of the people who lived there. There is an Italian neighbor, next house from the right, who was friend with them as well.
We never read any contract, we never signed any contracts, so instead of warn me and my partner with your finger prints job (even we did not commit any crime), please try harder in finding the real offenders who are entitled to be called to book for this felony you accused us instead. If you are a serious and competent corporation, as I hope you are, you should do a throughout investigation before blaming innocent people, not a second-hand investigation as you did till now. We are definitely not the persons who strained the law, therefore we are not the persons you are looking for, but probably the only persons you were able to track, as the other ones are either hiding or they used forgeries, or they are protected by this Sandra. I am fully aware that you are more interested in recovering the British Gas money than finding the real culprits, but please make an effort and try to recover them from the people who stole this amount of money, and not from the innocent people. It may not be the easiest way, but is the legal way for sure, even we all know that injustice is not always easy to prove.
If you need more help, your corporation could hire me as an investigator, and I m sure I m going to be more able than your current investigators to track down all the people responsible for this felony you easily and without any solid proof accused us instead.
I hope all these information were helpful to you. I tried a bit to help, even your letter was very rude and aggressive.

[Chris]

I managed to solve this issue a couple weeks ago. Here's what I did:

With the assistance of my mother (A secretary, and a damn good linguist) I put together a formal letter outlining the situation and explaining that I will only pay my share of the bill.

Now, I spent a long time going through my contract for the tenancy and I came across a clause that basically says the landlord will retain money from the tenant's deposits if utility bills are left unpaid. I made a BIG thing about this in the letter, pushing all responsibility off myself and onto the dickhead landlord who SUPPOSEDLY (I know he doesn't) has all the money owed to Swalec and/or LCS.

I finished off the letter saying I'm currently talking to Citizens Advice Bureau and have no qualms taking this to the Gas Ombudsman, I look forward to your prompt response, yadda yadda yadda.

Printed off the letter a bunch of times, signed them all, mailed to a bunch of people including Swalec, LCS, landlord, university. With the letter to Swalec I enclosed a cheque for the remainder of what I owed for my share.

Around a week later I got a phonecall from Swalec saying that they would remove me from the bill and that they would ask LCS to remove me as well. Around a week later I made a couple phonecalls to make sure I was off the bill and they weer actually reluctant to talk to me about the account/s because my name was no longer on their list!



So, to adelin3 inparticular, the way to go seems to be to find a way to pass all blame onto someone else. Point them in the direction of the money and they'll probably be happier to help.

[Chris]

Damn, a forum for people without money who are being hunted by thugs and vulgarity is censored?

[Webmaster]

LOL - yeah, the message board software is a bit over-zealous when it comes to censoring swear words. Just for you, I've switched it off for all but the strongest language... so all your "damn"s have reappeared!