Seeking advice for an ongoing issue with Spark Energy spanning 7 years - still not resolved

Hi ​@James_a_simpson ,

Probably one for ​@Nukecad to skim through. I’ll ask him to swing by.

I will be honest though… It seems the issues with Spark are still not resolved...

Thank you very much. Spark do not exist anymore though….same with SSE Energy

Spark basically got clobbered by Ofgem for their persistent and repeated failures along with the regulatory breaches. The most notable one being that employees impersonated customers in order to get rid of “undesirable” customers with chronic debts by using their details to switch them to other suppliers - the customers didn’t know about this happening. IIRC OVO doesn’t mind me talking about that on the Forum because ultimately:

1. Pretty much all of this happened before OVO took over via Supplier of Last Resort process when the actual Spark Energy ceased trading
2. OVO made sure that issues like the impersonation matter were stamped out ASAP after taking over the operations (though the impersonation had likely ceased anyway)
3. It’s well documented in the public domain
4. Spark Energy is now completely dead in every possible way

The reason SSE is gone is because SSE Plc wanted to quit the retail market - they’d attempted to quit previously by attempting to sell the retail business to nPower, but the deal fell through for unknown reasons. OVO agreed to buy the retail business in 2019, meaning SSE were out of the market pretty much immediately after the sale.

Tracing this back suggests you’ve been with OVO via one of its brands since around November 2018 - everything prior to that was Spark Energy when it actually existed.

From memory… OVO is still trying to wrestle with some of the issues that plagued Spark.

I will notify the Forum Moderators about this thread shortly, in case they can advise further.

That is not something that a reputable debt collection agency  (yes I know that's  an oxymoron to many) would even attempt to do.

A debt collector shouldn't even have your account details unless you yourself had given those details to them. (If they did have them and tried to use them without your permission then that would be a breach of the Data Protection Act).

Even if you had been taken to court and a CCJ awarded against you without your knowledge only High Court Enforcement Officers could try to access your bank account(s), and then only after trying other collection/enforcemet methods first. They have plenty of other choices to try before it come to that.

Was it exactly £1000? That would seem a suspiciously round number.

So, and bearing in mind that this could posinly be an attempted scam, let’s to try and work out what may be going on:

How do you know that someone tried to take the money? Did your bank tell you?

Have you reported this to your bank as suspicious, possibly fraudulent, activity?

(The banks fraud team can usually quickly say if the request was genuine or a scam).

Do you have a name or reference for the company who tried to take the money?

With a name or reference it may become clearer how you should deal with that situation so that they don't try again.

Hey ​@James_a_simpson, 

Welcome to our community! It’s great to see that some of our members have already reached out with helpful advice.

I understand that you’re facing a challenging situation, and I empathise with the stress it has caused you over time. It’s often beneficial to collaborate with the debt collectors rather than approaching the situation confrontationally. I have had a similar experience in the past with a debt collection agency pursuing a debt I believed belonged to a previous owner. After providing them with the necessary evidence to support my claims, they kindly ceased their pursuit and began searching for the correct individual responsible.

If you’re comfortable, could you please share the name of the debt collection agency that has been in contact with you? As @Nukecad pointed out, debt collection agencies generally do not have the authority to directly withdraw money from your account. They usually prefer to negotiate a repayment agreement with you. If there has been an attempt to withdraw funds, it may have involved a bailiff acting under a valid court order.

I would highly encourage you to establish a constructive line of communication with the company to gain a clearer understanding of their processes and what they are attempting to recover.

​@Nukecad has also written a great guide to dealing with debt collection agencies that i’ll leave below:

Thanks ​@Chris_OVO The debt collector is Dukes Bailiffs. I have 2 emails from OVO saying that debt collectors will not be contacting me while they are sorting out the outstanding issue. In true form, OVO have failed to contact me on 3 different days and time agreed.

Morning ​@James_a_simpson,

This was a tough read - I can only imagine how stressful and upsetting this has been for you.

I’m assuming that you already have a complaints reference number from OVO for this - do you know if the complaint is still open? Have you spoken to your complaints handler recently? 

I’ve checked the Energy Ombudsman web page about Spark Energy disputes, and the website says:

I then clicked ‘Register dispute with SSE, which leads to this page:

This is a really tricky one as it stems all the way back to Spark, however if the complaint has never been resolved since you were with them then I feel that our Complaints team must do what they can to help with this, but I’m unsure of the complete ins and outs. If you could let me know what OVO’s complaints team have advised that would be helpful. I can see you’ve said that OVO have told you it would be resolved, but I’m wondering if they’ve told you how they are resolving it?

I really hope this is fixed for you ASAP and, if you’ve got a complaint open with OVO you should definitely let your complaint handler know about this recent communication from the debt collector.