I received a letter from Spark Energy yesterday, addressed to 'The Occupier', welcoming me to them as my new supplier. Goes on to say that "As instructed by your letting agent on your behalf, we've been appointed as the gas and electricity supplier to your property". But I don't have a letting agent/landlord, I own the property! I was the tenant, but I bought it from the landlord two months ago. My landlord used a local letting agency, and during our tenancy they've been taken over by Countrywide. It's obvious what has happened - Countrywide have an agreement with Spark to refer as many tenanted properties to them as possible, they are clearly getting kickbacks/commission from doing so. When they processed my tenancy agreement they have done the (allegedy automated) process of requesting Spark to take over the gas and electricity supplies. But they should never have done this, they had no right to. My tenancy ended on the day my purchase of the property completed. They were no longer acting for the landlord, since there was no longer a landlord. This is the first I've heard about any change to my supplier, and the electricity changed over to them 4 days ago, gas due to next week! If they'd contacted my (or 'the occupier') beforehand, I could have told them to do one and stopped this from happening. Obviously it's Countrywide that's initiated this mess, but I find it shocking that Spark are just blindly taking instructions from Countrywide to acquire supplies without bothering to attempt to make contact with the occupier until after the switch has been completed. Is this allowed, seems like sharp practise to me? I phoned Spark first of all, who confirmed that it was Countrywide behind it. I told them they had no right to perform a switch without my consent, and Countrywide had no authority to request it. I asked them to reverse the switch immediately and put me back with my previous supplier. Initially I was told they couldn't do that, and I should go through the normal switching process again to change back! Told them that wasn't good enough - I've not entered contract with Spark, it'll take weeks to switch back, I'll be on an uncompetitive tariff with Spark in the meantime. And the (exceptionally good) tariff I was on with my previous supplier is no longer available to new customers. After a bit or denial and erring, they finally accepted that they could attempt to reverse the switch under the erroneous transfer correction procedure, which I instructed them to do asap. Although they said that it was conditional on my previous supplier agreeing to reinstate my contract with them. I then spoke to my existing supplier (GB Energy), who were very helpful. They immediately understood the problem and said that they could also initiate the erroneous switch reversal from their side, and it would probably be quicker. So hopefully it will get resolved and I'll be put back to where I was with GB Energy before this fiasco. But it sounds like it could take a while to resolve. I then called my old letting agent to bring the problem to their attention and get them to escalate it within Countrywide (in the hope of them improving their procedures if nothing else). Letting agent was very blase about it, "just standard practice, nothing we can do, no point in me even raising it". They used to be a really good local letting agent, always had a good relationship with them in the past. Then Countrywide took them over, the staff are the same, but the service has turned to rubbish. So, who has done this, is it just Countrywide, or are Spark partly to blame accepting an unauthorised switch? I guess the regulator can't touch Countrywide? Even if I get put back to where I was, I'm not happy that this mess has ever been allowed to occur, and I intend to kick up as much stink as possible.

Hi, I moved abroad a little over a year ago and a few months after realized that there were unrecognizable direct debits, standing orders and Amazon purchases in my account. I called up the fraud department and was told that I should contact the local police and have them in turn contact the UK police who would corroborate with the bank upon which Lloyds would refund me the money lost. I took it up with the local police (which took a fair amount of time given how THEY work) and then the UK police. Few weeks after I tried to log in to internet banking and my account had been closed. Since then I have tried to contact customer care followed by the fraud department. All I got from them was that my account had been closed and there was nothing that they could do for me over the phone. I have been now asked to write a letter to their Customer Relations office in Birmingham but it seems like it's just a way to get me off their backs. The fraudulent transactions were made by someone who had presumably stolen my card details. I suspect it was my previous flatmate who was wont to such skulduggery. The bank did try to mail me about the closure of my account but they sent it to my UK address where I was no longer resident. Questions: 1. Can I really expect my money back from them? It says so on their website that they would if they found that it wasn't due to a fault of mine. 2. Can I do anything to speed up or ease the process? Naturally, all correspondence with them is made even more difficult due to the fact that I am abroad. 3. Is there anything I can or should do to get some action from them? This has been pretty frustrating so far, I feel like I've been on a wild goose chase for the last six months. 4. Any similar experiences or general advice. Thanks in advance. Cheers Freebird