Since we recently moved house I’ve received two letters from Utility Warehouse, both claiming that they are our electricity supplier. The most recent contains a convincing bill (for £1.25!), complete with meter number, reading, account number, direct debit guarantee and setup details. Utility Warehouse are not our supplier - in fact, I’ve never heard of them before. The only real giveaway is that the letters are addressed to ‘The New Occupier or Owner’. I imagine that this could easily take in vulnerable or just distracted people. I don’t want to contact the company to complain as I don’t think that will get me anywhere (probably it would just expose me to a further deluge of scammy communications).
Does anyone here know how to report this? I don’t see how this is legal… Ofgem only seem to have a procedure to report my current supplier after their complaints procedure is exhausted
Are there Smart meters there as presumably these would still be reporting to the previous utility companies so maybe they are just looking for continuity of custom hence the inclusion of direct debit setup details. Chancers maybe thinking that you’ll just use what the previous owners did for simplicity but you should be free to use whichever companies you want with no penalty and previous owners/occupiers should be liable for charges up until you moved in. I assume you took meter readings when you moved in.
No harm looking at what they have to offer I guess.
Utility Warehouse are very much real. If I were you I’d get in touch with them to explain you are the new occupier. Maybe there is a slight discrepancy on readings on the changeover date, or another simple mistake. If it’s not sorted out you may get a negative mark on your credit record, which can be a right nuisance.
We were moved from SSE to OVO for electricity late last year.
I think any sensible person would have assumed they’d have used your final SSE bill reading as the starting reading for the transfer but they didn’t and used a fictitious ‘actual reading’ which I complained about as I did not provide it. This complaint resulted in recalculation of several other bills, disappearing bills from my billing history and further unspecified charges/refunds which I again complained about.
The complaint is still ongoing and it’s actually really simple in that an unspecified £180 charge on the first bill was roughly (within a couple of pence probably due to rounding) the difference between my final SSE bill meter reading and what they assumed my starting reading was using an incorrect figure.
My complaint was simply that you can’t just put an ‘unspecified charge’ on a bill and assume that it is is clear to the customer what it represents and actual calculations based on use and unit costs should have been specified as well.
They can’t get their heads around my suggestion that they simply needed to specify energy usage costs between leaving SSE and their incorrect starting reading.
I think it’s to do with their live billing system which seems to estimate usage based on historical readings and updates daily, or even hourly when you give a reading. It’s actually nice to be able to enter an actual reading manually and the amount owing is updated often within minutes.
I forgot to give a reading yesterday which they’d have used for my latest bill, it was overestimated, but I managed to add a retrospective reading this morning which the system accepted and had lowered the bill.
I quite like it now but there seem to be many complaints onlione about the migration process and incorrect ‘starting’ readings when it should be simple to use the one from the last SSE bill.
If you don’t enter any readings following a billing period it’s interesting to see how much the standing charge alone is costing you as that gets added daily.
Defo a scam and they can’t have your bank details unless you have provided them. I reckon the previous occupiers were a bit iffy.
Very annoying if the address is on a dodgy list.
I’ve just had a chat with my supplier - it looks like Utility Warehouse were the suppliers before we moved in and the previous owners gave incorrect information. I’ve been freaking out for no reason - apologies all!
Maybe Utility Warehouse were using Eon as the actual supplier?
There’s another company (or several) which you sign up to but they swap suppliers on your behalf when there’s a better deal, unlikely at the minute I suspect!
