AN ANGRY man has claimed he has suffered two months of stress and worry because of 'bureaucratic bungling' by Yorkshire Electricity.

Wes Kennedy has accused Yorkshire Electricity of trying to 'steal' his gas supply.

The Otley man said his St Richard's Road home has always had its gas supplied by British Gas, until a letter addressed to someone who he'd never heard of arrived

on his mat, thanking him for

switching to Yorkshire Electricity for his gas.

"I'd never heard of this woman before and I never asked to switch suppliers so I was shocked when this letter arrived - I am happy with British Gas. It was completely unauthorised, but YE seemed determined to have my gas.

"It has been a stressful time. I can look after myself, but there may be more vulnerable people who can't and my main concern is that other unsuspecting folks should be alerted to what is going on.

"I think there is a prima facie case for investigating the extent to which this type of practice goes on. It was a chapter of errors."

Mr Kennedy's diary of misery includes;

January 10 2000 - Received a letter from YE's Leeds domestic energy department addressed to a Mrs Simpson saying that Yorkshire Electricity was going take over his gas supply.

He phoned YE up who apologised and said that they had got the wrong person and address and that it would be put right.

February 1 - Received a letter from YE's domestic energy dept in Sheffield asking for a starting metre reading because they wanted to take over supply in five days time.

Mr Kennedy contacted YE to complain, only to be told that the customer metre reference number they had was correct for this address.

Not satisfied, he then spoke to customer services in Sheffield, who apologised and told him it was an erroneous transfer, which would be cancelled.

British Gas cancelled Mr Kennedy's standing orders, because they believed he was YE's customer.

February 21 - Received another letter, this time from customer services in Sheffield telling him that YE were "sorry to hear that you are considering switching to a new gas supplier" when as far as he was concerned,

he wasn't with YE in the first

place.

"It has all been sorted out now," said Mr Kennedy. "But I've had the inconvenience of having my direct debits cancelled and I won't be able to restart for another month or so yet. As far as I am concerned, I have never been YE's customer, despite all their best efforts."

A spokeswoman for YE apologised for any inconvenience and promised that Mr Kennedy would not receive any more correspondence from them. She said that the confusion had arisen because they had received a transfer request from a customer who had a very similar address and postcode and who had wrongly filled in their application form.

Consequently, the spokeswoman claims Mr Kennedy received mail meant for her.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.