UPC Billing Issue

Hi,

The apartment I live in belongs to my parents and has always been theirs (they bought it off plans). No one else has ever lived in the Apt and they have always had an NTL/UPC box and never any other provider. At no point have they ever closed their NTL account either.

A couple of months ago a bill came in from NTL/UPC addressed to my mother but there was also a second bill with our address for another person. Our own bill was paid and we contacted NTL/UPC to see if they could shed some light on the reason for a second bill for a different account and user arriving at our address. The woman was quite helpful and said that it was indeed very strange and that she would escalate it and try and get it sorted. We returned the stranger's bill to sender and thought that would be the last of it.

About 2 months later (billing periods of 2 months) another bill for the mystery person arrived. I didn't even bring it into the apartment and just wrote "Not known at this address" and put it in a post box on my way to work.

This morning I opened up my mail box and found a letter addressed to the stranger. Not a bill now but a letter which is obviously from a debt collection agency or a solicitors office. I immediately rang UPC and spoke to an unhelpful person. I explained that we had spoken to someone before about this and that they'd said they'd have it looked into. Obviously this never happened. I asked how was it possible for someone to open a new account on our address when we'd never terminated our own service! "I can't discuss other people's accounts with you!"

She went on to say that perhaps the person lived there before we did - eh no they haven't. Basically now I'm wondering if a couple of burly men are going to arrive at my door demanding payment on a bill that isn't even ours? I told her this and she put me on hold and came back and said that no one would be calling to our door!

But what can I do to sort this out? It's obvious that there is a data collection error on their part and they're not willing to do anything about it. I'm also wondering how on earth someone managed to set up an account at our address? Do you not need proof of address to set up a UPC account? She did say that there is a phone number on the account and they're trying to contact the person now.

Anyone ever have issues like this or can anyone offer any ideas?

Thanks
Trippy!