Issue with bills for previous owner still coming to house

ceewa

Hi

We bought our house about 6.5 years ago, the person we bought the house from disconnected our Electricity before we moved in and we reconnected the supply and have been with Electric Ireland since then (July 2011)
Over the years we have received various bills from Electric Ireland address to the previous owners, some i just returned to sender, some i opened in error as I just assume letters coming to my address are for me. Both myself and my husband have rang to ask that these letters/bills are no longer sent to us as they are not connected to either our account or to us but we received another one this morning.
Is there any way to stop these being sent to us? is there any way that these are linked to our address and that our supply could be cut off due to someone else's non-payment of another account.

Thanks
Ciara

Electric Ireland: Brige B

Hi Ciara,

Thanks for your message.

We would be unable to prevent letters from being issued to the property, if the address on the old account in question has not been updated by the named account holder. If your estate agent has contact details for the previous owner, they might be able to get in touch with them, and advise that they update their contact information with Electric Ireland.

In the meantime, we recommend continuing to mark them as 'No Longer at This Address', or 'Return to Sender'.

We can also advise that there is no need to worry about a disconnection for the property. As long as the property is registered in your name, your husband's name, or registered to both of you, and the account is open and the balance cleared as necessary, then a disconnection would not occur, unless requested by yourselves.   

We hope this helps. Should you have any other questions, please let us know.

Thanks,
Brige

Rotten12

I moved in a house with gas meter and esb meter prepay I hate them. How do I get rid of them? Sign up with yourselves, pay by direct debit. What is procedures? And is there a cost to get rid of meters? I've never had to use these before, there a nuisance,

Electric Ireland: Aoife

Hi Rotten12,

Thank you for your interest in switching to Electric Ireland.

There is no charge to revert a Pay As You Go electricity meter to bill-pay, but there is charge to change a gas Pay As You Go meter to bill-pay. The reason for this is that an electricity Pay As You Go meter can be deactivated with a code, but a gas Pay As You Go meter will need to be replaced by a brand new meter. The charge to replace the meter is almost 200 euro.

You can find information relating to all our offers here. We are currently offering €175 credit to new customers for switching to Electric Ireland. In order to switch to Electric Ireland, we recommend calling our Sales team on 1850 305 090. Within 48 hours of requesting the switch to Electric Ireland, you will be able to get a code to deativate the electricity meter by calling 1850 372 372. In the case of gas Pay As You Go, once the change of supplier fully completes an appointment can be arranged to replace the gas Pay As You Go meter.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,
Aoife

ceewa

Electric Ireland: Brige wrote: »

Hi Ciara,

Thanks for your message.

We would be unable to prevent letters from being issued to the property, if the address on the old account in question has not been updated by the named account holder. If your estate agent has contact details for the previous owner, they might be able to get in touch with them, and advise that they update their contact information with Electric Ireland.

In the meantime, we recommend continuing to mark them as 'No Longer at This Address', or 'Return to Sender'.

We can also advise that there is no need to worry about a disconnection for the property. As long as the property is registered in your name, your husband's name, or registered to both of you, and the account is open and the balance cleared as necessary, then a disconnection would not occur, unless requested by yourselves.   

We hope this helps. Should you have any other questions, please let us know.

Thanks,
Brige

Hi Brige

Thanks for replying. I received another letter yesterday from Electric Ireland for the previous owner.  Its good to know that our connection and bill aren't affected by other accounts having our address on them.

We bought our house 7 years ago and I don't feel it should be on my to chase previous owners about changing their contact details. We were receiving other correspondence from different organisations and when we contacted the various organisations the letters stopped being sent to our address.

I would like some further clarification on what would happen if the other account/accounts are in arrears. If the letters being sent to the previous owner are only only means of contacting them and they are not getting the letters is there a risk that we would be held liable for these accounts in arrears if our address is the only contact information linked to the account?

Is there another method of making contact with the person i.e. phoning them, contacting them at the addresses that accounts are for, redirecting the correspondence to the address they are connected to as we have clearly stated that our address is incorrect for these accounts?

Thanks
Ciara?

Electric Ireland: Una

Hi Ciara,

Thank you for getting in touch.

Do private message us the name of the previous occupant, the address, and the property's electricity meter point reference number (MPRN) which you will find on your own bill (this number remains the same at all times). The above is the only information we require (we need to ask that you do not provide the account number if you have it, thanks). We will escalate the matter to see what can be done.

We wish to reassure that you would never be deemed liable for another customer's account balance. Liability for an account balance is only based on account number and name, not correspondence address, as customers can register any correspondence address (it is not always the same as that of the property). The reason the items are still going to your address is: a new correspondence address was not provided, and post automatically goes to the only correspondence address on the system associated with a customer.

Please also include your own full name in the message. We will review it as soon as possible.

Thanks,
Una