Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I'm now officially in debt...

...for an amount of 8.22 pounds.

This is the amount due from the "final electricity bill" left over from the previous tenant. Obviously, I'm not the one to pay it. I sent it to the landlord (and the lettings agent) several times long ago, and not surprisingly they won't deal with it; I also told the electricity company, Southern Electric, about this, and also not surprisingly (as they constantly feature on BBC's Watchdog programme) they didn't handle it properly either. In fact, I have set up my own account with Southern Electric (at this same property address), they sent me my bills, and I paid. But they continued to repeatedly issue several threat letters to "The Occupier" (they don't even know their client's name!) about that outstanding bill.

Eventually, they passed it to a debt collection agency called Past Due Credit Solutions. They sent a letter to me as a "new customer" asking me to call them "regarding an important matter". So I called. Before I get to know anything more about the case, they instantly told me, after asking when I moved in, that they should not be sending this to me and apologised. And I wonder, it can't be so simple, right? What's their next trick? Do debt collectors in UK do what those in HK do? Hmm... (And by the way, that Scottish accent was simply unintelligible, especially over the phone.)

Actually, the 8.22 is just my guess because there is also an outstanding water bill (which the water company didn't seem to chase after I set up my own account with them), and who knows how many more debts...