Energy company Octopus sorry for chasing Hartlebury guy over 6k improper invoice

A person has accused power company Octopus of “relentlessly” pursuing him for nearly 4 years for someone else’s fuel invoice of greater than £6,000.

Despite many times alerting the company to the mistake, Peter Holden, 67, of Hartlebury, Worcestershire, stated since August 2021 he used to be despatched per month power expenses and were chased through debt creditors.

The company’s pursuit persevered in spite of team of workers admitting Mr Holden used to be charged for a meter that shared the similar serial quantity, because of an error in business information.

After being contacted through the BBC, Octopus Energy’s industrial director stated he had individually apologised to Mr Holden and they’d organise additional coaching for team of workers to steer clear of the error being repeated.

“It’s been very frustrating that I’ve not been able to get them to stop sending these bills,” Mr Holden stated.

“It’s been very stressful because they’ve put that debt in the hands of debt collection agencies on three occasions to try and get that money from me – even though it’s not my debt.”

Since 2021, the inaccurate account’s remarkable steadiness rose from about £1,500 to greater than £6,000.

After being despatched a number of ultimate notices from debt creditors, a company visited Mr Holden’s house for the primary time in February.

An Octopus buyer himself, he claimed the power company had put extra assets into pursuing him for the invoice than in looking for the lacking fuel meter.

“The people I speak to on the phone or on email are apparently interested…but seem powerless to make any difference to stop this happening,” he added.

On one instance in September, Mr Holden won an e mail from an Octopus team of workers member providing a “sincere” apology for the misery brought about.

While the e-mail confident him he used to be now not responsible for the debt and would now not obtain additional conversation, expenses persevered to be despatched to Mr Holden’s space.

Mr Holden stated he had complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office after receiving expenses wherein he used to be individually named.

“Octopus seem like they have an information management problem,” he stated.

The company insisted letters have been despatched to “the occupier”.

In September, Mr Holden additionally wrote to Octopus’ leader govt, Greg Jackson, to whinge however stated he had now not won a answer from the boss’ place of business till remaining week.

“We sent Peter a number of letters addressed to ‘the occupier’ which were about the debt of another customer,” stated Mario Lupori, industrial director at Octopus.

“It was a complex situation where another account of ours had the same technical details as Peter’s meter and it took us too long to fix.”

After individually apologising to Mr Holden, Mr Lupori stated he would keep in touch and was hoping to revive his religion within the corporate.

The power company stated Mr Holden’s private main points had now not been shared and his credit score ranking had now not been affected.