Calor - unannounced €320 call out charge

Morkin

Hi folks,

We've a Ferroli gas boiler (2 years old) in a detached house in an estate supplied by piped Calor Gas. Last February we received a bill for January 2008 of €550. I questioned this vigorously at the time (as it was 4x higher consumption than previous bill) and Calor agreed to investigate and put the bill in dispute so I wouldn't have to pay until the matter was resolved. Follow-up calls led to them offering to send someone out to check that all was in order physically with my supply. Such a visit took place (my wife was at home) but I subsequently heard nothing, received no report or communication despite trying three times to ring the person I had been in contact with at Calor. Feck them I said, I'd wait for them to get back on the subject and sort the bill then.

They finally made contact about three weeks ago and confirmed that it had been a billing mistake and the bill had been for December 2007 and January 2008 and I agreed to pay the outstanding bill on receipt of a new invoice which they agreed to send out. I never received this invoice but today I received an invoice for €320 for a service engineer call out at some undated occasion.

Now my question is what is my liability for this call out charge as I was never told there would be any charge let alone an amount and the fact that I received no report from the visit.

I shall get in touch with the NCA in the morning but would appreciate any input from you folks as well.

Thanks in advance,

M.

jimmycrackcorm

Had they not made a billing mistake then there would have been no engineer call-out. Their fault!

Morkin

I agree but it'll be interesting to see their view on the matter. Can anyone indicate how I stand legally? (Waiting on NCA response b4 calling Calor)

Thanks,

Morkin.

axer

Morkin wrote: »

I agree but it'll be interesting to see their view on the matter. Can anyone indicate how I stand legally? (Waiting on NCA response b4 calling Calor)

Thanks,

Morkin.

There is no way you will have to pay that bill since it was not your mistake. They could have argued if it was a case that the engineer calls and only to find it was your mistake like companies such as Eircom do.

Send a letter to calor outlining all of this and keep a record. They will have to respond to the letter.

Biggins

If you do write back to them, consider registering the letter.
It can prove later that you tried to contact them and it also shows that you are serious in your intentions to see your not going to get ripped off.

Morkin

Thanks for the feedback. NCA confirmed sending a register letter of complaint and that it looked like I had a case. Anyhow I then rang Calor and apparently this was an invoice for the initial connection I paid over two years ago and is a fault with their 'computers' - nice to see they've fixed stuff in the past year

So unrelated to the call out caused by the billing fault of last Jan but still a billing fault. Crazy.

Thanks again,

M.

dahamsta

On the subject of Calor, I'd like to repost a comment I just posted on my blog:

dahamsta wrote:

Funny you should bump this Donal, I’m just about to move house again, back to OFCH. Only too delighted to get away from the disgustingly expensive communal tank in Na Banta, run by Calor. More expensive even that Bord Gais, by my reckoning, and a singularly incompetent - and ignorant - company when it comes to billing. Very nearly as bad as BT. But not quite, obviously…