Border Telegraph | News | Residents told to ignore threatening letters and bills

Tuesday, 6th January, 2009

Published: Wednesday, 9th April, 2008 09:00

Residents told to ignore threatening letters and bills

By Susie Penman

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RESIDENTS in the Galashiels neighbourhoods of Meigle View and Riddle Dumble Park have been given some unusual advice from Scottish Gas regarding the gas bills they receive: ignore them, for the time being.

It’s advice that comes after a years-long debacle involving meter mix-ups in the two neighbourhoods, which Scottish Gas said it hopes to have resolved by the end of the week.

In the meantime, however, the company has advised that residents receiving any odd bills or threatening letters simply ignore them until everything is sorted.

Pauline Ward, a resident in Meigle View since 2005, said: “It’s hitting the fan now. There are about 25 residents in the process of changing suppliers.”

Mrs Ward said she had been receiving bills addressed to ‘the occupier’ rather than herself, and that they were for the wrong meter.

“I’ve told them my name about a hundred times,” she said. “I’ve written to them about a hundred times. But it keeps coming to ‘the occupier’.

“It’s an absolute nightmare.”

Ann Davidson, who also lives in Meigle View, agreed.

She has been paying £30 per month since she moved in two and a half years ago, yet now she’s having to prove that she’s paid.

“They couldn’t find my payments,” she said. “I’ve got somebody in Riddle Dumble Park’s meter.

And between eight months and one year ago, Mrs Davidson began getting threatening letters because the company claimed she had not been paying her bills.

“I started getting warrants about a year ago, I’ve lost track,” she said.

“You phone Scottish Gas—what a nightmare that is. I was put through to a call center in India.

“I can laugh, but it’s so stressful.”

Ursula Dytor, a Riddle Dumble Park resident, has also been paying Scottish Gas since the month she moved into her new home a year and a half ago.

But last Tuesday, a legal notice from the company arrived in the mail.

“It was a legal notice, a warrant, saying the police would come in,” she said. “They’re thinking of doing it to change the meter.”

But not only has Ms Dytor been paying her bills—her gas meter is outside her house.

“It’s daft,” she said. “They don’t even need to come inside,” she said. “It’s outside. It’s at the front door.”

“These estates get built up all the time. It’s unbelievable that this can still be going on.”

A spokeswoman from Scottish Gas said that in her experience, she had never seen a mixup quite as big as the one in the two estates, and that it was a “really, really complicated” issue.

She added, however, that the company that did the metering has now re-registered all the meters, and that records are now being manually updated—a slow process that will hopefully be finished soon.

In the meantime, computer-generated letters sent to residencies in the neighbourhoods can be ignored, and residents will soon receive updated bills, accompanied by letters explaining them.

Residents, however, don’t sound as hopeful.

Tracy Alder, secretary for the neighbourhood’s residence group, said:

“Well, they told us they’d have it sorted about three weeks ago.

“It’s just such a big mess.”

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