Is it legal for OVO to open an account in my name without permission after moving out?
Hi there.
To set the scene…..
My partner was an OVO customer in her old rented house. Even though I eventually moved in with her, the OVO bill stayed solely in her name, as it always had.
In Feb 2022 we got our first house together. We moved on Feb 14th and our tenancy ended on March 1st. My partner contacted OVO as she wished to take the account with us - but they wouldn’t offer the same tariff, so she told them we were leaving the property and wanted to cancel. She paid off the outstanding on the account, along with an extra month or so as we weren’t quite at the end of the contract.
Fast forward to mid-August. We’ve been moved 6 months, and I get a letter from OVO in my name (odd, as I’ve never been an OVO customer, they’ve never had my details). It was sent to the old address, and luckily only found its way to me as Royal Mail are still redirecting. If not for that, I wouldn’t even know about this.
The letter was a bill in my name for energy usage (not very much, mostly standing charge - I assume the property is still empty), but they’re trying to charge me £130 from March 5th (after we moved out and the tenancy ended) up until present day.
Basically, they’ve decided that they want someone to pay standing charge and trickle usage on an empty house (which should be the landlord or the letting agency), but they’ve clearly looked on the old electoral register, found my name and set up an account without permission or without ever contacting me.
I called OVO and explained all of this to the guy I spoke to. He said he would get it cancelled, and I’d get a call within 5 working days to let me know the outstanding debt had been scrubbed. I’d heard nothing until a week later when I received a letter (again, sent to the old house and redirected) saying “Your account has been cancelled, Sorry to see you go”, but still presenting me with a settlement bill for £130.
I tried to call OVO again, but couldn’t get through on the phone because of the constant queues. I went through their complaints procedure via email, and a few days later got a response telling me that they couldn’t talk to me about the account as the email address I had messaged them from didn’t match the address on the account (there was no address on the account, as I had no part in creating it).
I tried phoning again, and did get to speak to someone. After explaining everything once again, he discovered that the first person I had spoken to the week before had made a mistake and processed it as a cancellation. He took some extra details from me (including a contact number and email address) and said I would need to send them a copy of the tenancy agreement for when we moved in and when we left.
There are several issues with this: The tenancy agreement was in my partner’s name, not mine. All of the paperwork was online through the letting agency, and we lost access to that after the tenancy ended. And even if we did have anything printed, we haven’t kept paperwork for a rented house that we moved out of half-a-year ago.
Now that OVO have my email address on file, I decided to complain via email again. This time adding that I can’t give them a copy of the tenancy agreement and also explaining that it shouldn't be down to me to prove that I don’t live at this address when they set up an account in my name with no proof that I did live at this address. They need to get this sorted, it’s their mistake.
This email was sent on August 31st. It’s now September 9th and I’ve heard nothing other than a text message a couple of days ago saying “please pay your £130 bill”.
TL;DR - OVO set up an account in my name for a property that I moved out of over 6 months ago, without contacting me at any stage. I’ve never been their customer or had any contact with them. I’m now having to jump through hoops to get them to fix their issue and I’m getting nowhere.
Is what they have done even legal?
What should I do next? Who do I speak to? How do I follow this up to get this sorted?
I find it absolutely disgusting that a company can just create an account and set up a bill in the name of someone they’ve never had any dealings with.
