Difficulty with Utility company

eddie

Hi,



I am trying to figure out what is the best legal option remedy for the following, apologies that it is a little longer than usual explanation.

Dealing with a "utility company" that has reached the point where they simply will not engage.

They generated 4 different accounts and I was aware of only one and then finally a second one.. I was making payments to the first account and they were re-routing the payment internally. This transfer system failed and although I was € 600 in credit, they cut off the service and then insisted on a re-connection fee to restore it,.

They will not give me breakdown of the 4 accounts so I can see the movement of the money or confirm if any other accounts exist and they have dragged this out over a year.

I have insisted on .

A full breakdown of the ins and outs of all money on all accounts

Confirmation of all accounts

Refund of reconnection fee and compensation

Refund of all monies due to me.

The service I am paying for is € 50 per month more than I can get competitively for over a year and I feel as if I am an economic captive as whatever chance I have of resolving this as a "customer" I would have zero chance if I was not a customer.

I have tried contacting the MD and all other managers, no joy, ZERO interaction not even a reply. I have only the "customer service" team and they delay, ignore, and simply refuse to communicate.. every reply from them is a copy of the exact same document saying the accounts show a balance of approx € 900 but NOT showing the details and that this is it no more information available and their document does not deal with any of the above other points. All of the other paths of resolving this have failed for one reason or other..

They accept that they have my € 900 but are making no effort to resolve it and the other points and return it to me.. They quite literally could not care less and make that quite obvious. It is frustrating beyond belief.

What is the best legal remedy to quickly and finally get this resolved in such a way the I do not incur, unrecoverable expense... ?

Thanks

Eddie

Pat Mustard

eddie wrote: »

What is the best legal remedy to quickly and finally get this resolved in such a way the I do not incur, unrecoverable expense... ?

Would you consider cancelling with them, sending them a letter with a calculation of your losses and if they don't pay, bring them to small claims court (assuming losses which are less than €2k)?

Otherwise possibly consider going through the complaints procedure with the energy regulator:
Commission for Energy Regulation

Victor

Have you specifically escalated this as a complaint? Many suppliers will fob you off if you don't do this.

If this is Irish Water (they gave me two accounts), you should be getting all the money back anyway.

Pat Mustard wrote: »

Otherwise possibly consider going through the complaints procedure with the energy regulator:
Commission for Energy Regulation

Alternatively ComReg if it is a communication provider.

Pat Mustard

Victor wrote: »

If this is Irish Water (they gave me two accounts), you should be getting all the money back anyway.

Alternatively ComReg if it is a communication provider.

For some reason, I just assumed that it was a (particular) electricity supplier!

Sparko

I would guess it's <snip> based on post history. So Comreg could help to light a fire under them, if not, small claims.

Pat Mustard

Sparko wrote: »

I would guess it's <snip> based on post history. So Comreg could help to light a fire under them, if not, small claims.

Mod note:

It would be best that we don't speculate on the name of the company.

eddie

Pat Mustard wrote: »

Would you consider cancelling with them, sending them a letter with a calculation of your losses and if they don't pay, bring them to small claims court (assuming losses which are less than €2k)?

Otherwise possibly consider going through the complaints procedure with the energy regulator:
Commission for Energy Regulation

I have tried all of the"official Channels" no joy as such... I would prefer to not comment on who the company is... I cannot over state enough that they just will NOT engage... and I am just fed up being dragged along for over a year on this...

Smalls claims courts would seem an option... but I cant prove exactly what they owe me as they refuse to give me the full information. So if I stated an amount, it would be easy for them to dispute it can make an impractical offer.

I was hoping someone knew someone that could take it on as it seems to be very obvious a case of negligence followed on by abysmal customer service getting them into an entrenched position... it is MY money that have shuffled around and refuse to tell me where / how much/ when and even the total amount... all I get is the proverbial two fingers. It is simply incredible.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

eddie

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Oh I have been well past the formal complaint stage... trust me.... also tried ALL of the bodies I could, from ministers to MD to outside agencies, share holders, all of management, PR, press office, including Data Protection.. which finally after many many weeks.. waiting from data protection I was advised.>

"I can confirm the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003 are concerned only
with the rights of individuals as regards their own personal data, there
are no provisions in the Acts regarding company or commercial data."

So as my account is a "business account" .. end of that..



The only recourse I can think of is to drag them into court and force them to provide the information and then refund the money.... they agree that it is approx € 900 but I want to know the ins and outs to see exactly how much it is... they totally ignore compensation for cutting me off while in credit and forcing me to pay to be reconnected, ( they have refunded the re-connection fee ).

I am being advised to just take what the offer and walk and forget it, but after the hassle they have and are imposing on me for over a year I am not inclined to just disappear. If that was the case we might as well tell everyone to not not bother complaining and teach all companies to run their "customer service" like this.. I want to know EXACTLY what they owe me and I want EVERY penny. After all -->> it IS my money.!!

Fred Swanson

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Obvious Otter

Have you tried an access request under section 4 of the Data Protection Acts 1998 & 2003? It costs €6.35. They would be obliged to provide any invoices or information that contains your name. That should get you what you want.

lifeandtimes

Pat Mustard wrote: »

For some reason, I just assumed that it was a (particular) electricity supplier!

I would have guessed a particular telecoms provider. Funny how that works

lifeandtimes

Op do a data request.

But first contact customer service and give them the 2 account numbers you have, be polite and just say theres been bit of a mix up,Can you provide me with the other account numbers as you need this for bill payments and tax records etc. Hopefully the person is innocent enough to hand them over and wouldn't see why not they're your accounts after all.

Once you have that info do the data request, contact the regulator and a solicitor to take it too court or prior to this fire of a massive email with all the derails to their complaint department saying you now have all the info and they need to sort it out as you are giving one last chance etc

davindub

OP a couple of things.

if you are a sole trader, you are an individual even if signed up to a business account.

If you are a taxable (VAT) person they are obliged to issue vat receipts.

But knowing the company as well, you won't get any sort of co-operation in dealing with them, if you search for their activities in relation to data protection, you will see how much trouble they create for themselves.

eddie

Obvious Otter wrote: »

Have you tried an access request under section 4 of the Data Protection Acts 1998 & 2003? It costs €6.35. They would be obliged to provide any invoices or information that contains your name. That should get you what you want.

I would have invoices for 2 of the 4 accounts ONLY. The problem is that there are at least 4 accounts and they were moving my money around.. a bit like..

Account A I always paid into this account.

Account B I was not aware of this and paid into A.. they moved funds to B

Account C I was not aware of this and paid into A.. they moved funds to C

This is when I was cut off, it seems the movement of money did not happen, although I was well in credit because I was receiving warning letters I double paid, twice.!, while trying to solve where the money had gone so they created Account D meanwhile I was disconnected and had to pay to be reconnected and pay another bill. ! hence approx € 900 of over payment.

Account D I became aware of this when I received a bill and from then paid into D


I dont know if there are are other accounts.. they will not confirm

I am given the balance in each account but not the amount transferred from account to account and they will not tell me. as you can understand I am not confident that they did the maths correctly.

And as I say the most annoying part is that thet point blank refuse to engage and every communication is 2-3 week delay minimum.

eddie

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Op do a data request.

But first contact customer service and give them the 2 account numbers you have, be polite and just say theres been bit of a mix up,Can you provide me with the other account numbers as you need this for bill payments and tax records etc. Hopefully the person is innocent enough to hand them over and wouldn't see why not they're your accounts after all.

Once you have that info do the data request, contact the regulator and a solicitor to take it too court or prior to this fire of a massive email with all the derails to their complaint department saying you now have all the info and they need to sort it out as you are giving one last chance etc

Tried that but there is obviously an alram that goes off when I contact them and all I get is "I will be called back".. I NEVER am.. Last time it was file is with legal......... wish it was...

eddie

davindub wrote: »

OP a couple of things.

if you are a sole trader, you are an individual even if signed up to a business account.

If you are a taxable (VAT) person they are obliged to issue vat receipts.

But knowing the company as well, you won't get any sort of co-operation in dealing with them, if you search for their activities in relation to data protection, you will see how much trouble they create for themselves.

Yes I know and I can see it many other complaints forums, official and unofficial and basically, they could not care less. They simply ignore it.

eddie

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Which is exactly why I am here trying to find out the best way to go about it that is not going to leave me with a huge legal bill.

flaneur

If they're an energy utility, they are regulated by CER www.cer.ie

If they're a telecoms utility, it's ComReg.

eddie

Pat Mustard wrote: »

Would you consider cancelling with them, sending them a letter with a calculation of your losses and if they don't pay, bring them to small claims court (assuming losses which are less than €2k)?

Seems like a good option but, as far as I know, you can only claim for actual losses, and it is how to prove them that is the stumbling block.. I can prove some but cannot be sure that I have them all, also would miss on compensation / loss of service for period when cut off or amount extra spent trapped as an economic captive,

Otherwise possibly consider going through the complaints procedure with the energy regulator:
Commission for Energy Regulation

Lets just say I have exhausted all avenues except legal.

eddie

flaneur wrote: »

If they're an energy utility, they are regulated by CER www.cer.ie

If they're a telecoms utility, it's ComReg.

Lets just say I have exhausted all avenues except legal.

Also in dealing with the "regulatiors", they were unhelpful and pedantic and added 6-8 weeks to each query.. it was water off a ducks back to supplier who has a daily and growing list of complaints and just ignores away.

I even queried inaccurate advertisments with the body for that and it was " self regulation", super pedantic and utterly useless. And also there, one could find many toothless "recommendations" because of the SAME inaccurate advertisments that were also totally ignored by the supplier.

It is quite incredible...

Pat Mustard

eddie wrote: »

Seems like a good option but, as far as I know, you can only claim for actual losses, and it is how to prove them that is the stumbling block.. I can prove some but cannot be sure that I have them all, also would miss on compensation / loss of service for period when cut off or amount extra spent trapped as an economic captive,



Lets just say I have exhausted all avenues except legal.

Let's put it this way then, what have you got to lose by going to the Small Claims Court. If you sue them there and lose, will you be any worse off than you are now?

eddie

Pat Mustard wrote: »

Let's put it this way then, what have you got to lose by going to the Small Claims Court. If you sue them there and lose, will you be any worse off than you are now?

True looks like my last and only option... apart from marching up and down with a placard or Joe Duffy

Fred Swanson

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