Fraud On Energy Bill And Scottish Power Has No Fraud Department To Deal With

[OldChestNuts]

We had a fraudster who claimed to have moved into our new business premises in Oct 2023. This came to our attention beacause there was a new customer joining letter from Scottish Power and addressed to a fake company at our address.

Now we still get bills payment demand addressed to the fake company demanding payment and will be passed onto debt collection agent.

We already informed Scottish Power customer service by emails and telephone calls. Non of these channels results in any resolution to stop the demand of payment. 

We had reported to the Police and Fraud Action and OFGEM. None of these resolve the issue. 

What do we do next? Instruct a solicitor to take Scottish Power to court and resolve it by the law of the country? 

[OldChestNuts]

I am filing a small claims against Scottish Power, what is the reasonable rates I shopuld be submitted per hour I spent with these clowns?

[newmodarmy]

Claim for what? There's no financial loss so are you sureyou can claim through the account for your time?

[joko]

youre not responsible for other peoples bills, whether its your address or not - if your house was split into flats, theyd all have the same address.
Just write return to sender, not known at this address.

To get your meter number, they may have stolen your mail - but how?
Or perhaps they just made up a random number based on SP number format & they have no idea who it matched to, they just needed an official account.

[OldChestNuts]

@joko

According to Scottish Power, any Joe Bloggs could just ring them up as tell them that they are the new occupier. You don't need anything else to verify. This is shocking I know. I hope scamers are not reading as this will give them an idea of how to do it. 

Who ever recommended me post a review on Trust Pilot. Thanks to that advise. It does work, I have a response and I am keeping the reviews updated as the case progress as this will give them pressure to resolver the issue. I am now chatting on their Facebook...

[barry1010]

Didn't they send you a final bill when they were told another company had moved in?

[OldChestNuts]

@barry1010

Yes we did, that was the reason we leanrt that somehting is going on, then a few days later the welcome sign up lettert arrives addressed to the fake company.

On Facebook chat, they had referred the case to a senior (assuming its true).

[OldChestNuts]

Update: 14th March

Following reaching out via Trust Pilot and Facebook, I have a case handler looking into the case.

1. The case manager said they will change the correspondent address to Scottish Power (after their internal management meeting decision)

2. They don't have alternative way to cancel the bill

This explains why they kept on fobbng me off on resolving the matter, i.e. to stop sending debt letters to our address. Because Scottish Power has no process to cancel the bills even it's their fault. This can't be a special case.

Now the debt collection agent will turn up to Scottish Power to collect debt!!

This saga is not ended yet. Because they still have to resolve the national database and put in order.

At one time , the case manager even suggested that we use the fraudulent company name as our business trading name and that will be easier to resolve. I told them this is day light fraud!! We told them that we will not enter that option. Maybe they are trying to trick us into owing the debt.

I find this sort of behavior is unacceptable and don't expect that from a large organisation.

 

 

[newmodarmy]

I still don't get it . You can't be getting two bills if they closed one account and opened another

[newmodarmy]

They are not tricking you or trying to defraud you. They are just incompetent. Just focus on sorting it amicably and avoid such accusations.

[OldChestNuts]

@ newmodarmy

When our account was closed, the fraudster took over the meter for 20 days. And this bill is for this payement. But its more complex, becuase the national database shows that our business is still being supplied with energy.

The entire thing has inconsistency.

[newmodarmy]

I think maybe we are both confused. You must be getting one bill not two ; it's just that the bill is addressed to the wrong company name at your address.

 

[davebro3]

I think you should sort this yourself & stop asking AB unanwerable questions!