Complaint not answered - now Ovo instructs LCS

Just mark any further correspondence with “Not Known At This Address” and put them in a post box. Keep a log of the date received and returned. 

As the letters are coming to your address I think it would be worth contacting the energy ombusman to see what advise they can give although you are not an OVO customer. It is likely LCS will need to go through a process in order to bring this in front of the courts. This likely will include a pre-action protocol in which you will have a chance to respond to denying the claim. Should they then decide to proceed to court they will need evidence that you actually own them money. Your defence should be sufficient to get this thown out as the money is owed by a third party. No doubt you could do without the stress, inconvienience and wasted time this will bring. If it comes to court I would look for legal advise and perhaps engage a solicitor. Look to recover their costs and yours too. Hope this can be resolved to your satisfaction.

If you are now getting letters from LCS then you need to deal with LCS and not OVO.

PS. Contacting the Ombidsman to complain about OVO sending the letters would be useless - simply because it is LCS who are sending the letters not OVO.

Many people make the mistake of complaining to the wrong place(es) like that.
Again - If the letters are coming from a Debt Collection company then it is the Debt Collector that you need to deal with to get them stopped.

I have an advice thread here on how to sucessfully deal with such letters:

Read the first post there so that you understand who you need to be complaining to.

Then you want link #1 - Debt Collection Letters addressed to “The Occupier”

I understand your concerns. Moreover, I’ve been in the same situation twice. Firstly, you need to remember, letters are not addressed to you, meaning not to your name and surname. That means, you are not responsible for the debt which was made in the period of time before you moved in. Another thing to remember, it’s common practice to send these letters. It’s nothing personal to you. In all my cases, I was able to sort it out by communicating with the energy provider. Though it was stressful. I don’t think that filing the complaint would help. I’m afraid there is no case for that. But I fully understand your frustration! My advice is to continuously communicate with the energy supplier, reminding about your case. And to the LCS as well.

!!!PLEASE DO NOT JUST RETURN THE LETTER!!!

That is literally the single most dangerous - and incorrect - piece of advice which is actually a misconception for matters like this. It doesn’t make the matter go away, but instead makes it worse.

​It’s important to remember that these forums get read by a LOT of users. Please bear in mind that bad advice can cause more damage than solutions. You may find it useful to check out the guides we’ve written to get a better idea on how we manage these situations, but please try to make sure to research answers before posting them - especially debt stuff!

Thanks for understanding

​@igc324 thanks for your post.

I can see you’ve had some great advice here from ​@Nukecad and ​@costeek. If the letters aren’t addressed to you then there is no debt against your name, meaning that LCS are not after you, and there will be nothing sent to Experian in your name. 

Then advice you’ve been given about speaking to your Landlord or Letting Agent isn’t bad advice at all - it might even turn out that the Landlord forgot to contact OVO to inform us of a period of liability, so would be a simple one for them to fix just by making a payment. 

Let us know how you get on.