A SERIOUSLY ill Largs woman has told how she was hounded by bailiffs sent by an energy firm - despite having settled her bills and left them eight months ago.

Hazel Dow, who suffers with a string of health issues including epilepsy and Lupus, switched her supplier back in November from SSE/Ovo to British Gas but continued to be wrongly plagued with demands for cash from the first firm.

SSE/Ovo kept sending her a string of gas bills - then followed up with a visit fron bailiffs three months ago.

A fearful Hazel, 43, paid £125 after being told she had to hand over the cash to stop a court action proceeding, but the charges kept coming.

The former commis chef says she has been left exasperated with the situation after complaining to the both firms, the Ombudsman and Citizen Advice.

She said: "I am being charged by two companies for the same fuel.

"I have phoned SSE to tell them that I am registered with British Gas for both supplies, but it has been to no avail. It has been crazy.

"Then SSE sent bailiffs to my door, which was really upsetting and frightening.

"I am ill with Lupus and also have Covid just now and it is the last thing that I need. I've had demands, texts and letters demanding money."

Hazel, whose partner Colin has a weak heart, says another bill for £80 dropped this week.

She said: "I have no intention of paying it.

"The utility companies are blaming each other and I am not paying another penny to either."

The News contacted both firms in a bid to have the matter resolved.

After we flagged up the problems, both have finally acted to have the accounts rectified - and admitted a problem on the national database and not Hazel is responsible for the long-running saga.

An OVO spokesperson said: "Mrs Dow switched to British Gas and while the electricity supply switched as normal, the gas supply remained with SSE.

"This happened due to the unique gas identifier for the property being listed on the National Gas Database incorrectly.

"We called Mrs Dow and advised her to note down her gas meter serial number and carry out a test which has confirmed that British Gas has erroneously taken over Mrs Dow’s neighbouring property.

"To resolve this British Gas need to carry out an erroneous transfer to return the neighbour’s supply, before correctly taking over the SSE gas supply.

"We have called Mrs Dow and explained what’s happened which she understands.

"We have cleared all the outstanding charges on Mrs Dow’s SSE account as she’s not at fault for the error."

A British Gas spokesperson said: "It does look like an advisor made a mistake with this account, which we’ve now corrected. We’ve spoken to Hazel to let her know we’re sorry for what happened - an advisor misunderstood the situation with SSE and her account was closed in error but it has now been reinstated. We’ll continue to stay in touch until this is all sorted for her.

"We’ve supplied Hazel’s property with gas and electricity since November 2021.

"It appears SSE was sending her gas bills because of a mix-up with metering details on the national database – we’re still investigating this."

Hazel said: "Thanks very much to the Largs and Millport Weekly News for helping to finally get this issue resolved."