A STALYBRIDGE charity says it faces closure after being hit with an £8,500 electricity bill, with more to come.
Cancer Warriors has been left fearing for its future after handing over the huge sum after it was claimed it had not properly switched over its premises on Melbourne Street when it moved in September 2021.
That is despite founder Derrick Evans saying he let in a meter reader, who claimed to be from Opus Energy, when they moved in.
Now he fears what the future holds as bills are rising.
He said: “If we don’t get funds in soon, the doors will shut.
“It’s gutting as it’s taken so long to get us here and we’re so needed now.
“Being at this building, I’ve seen such an increase in service users and we’re helping so many people but it really is heartbreaking.
“When I came up with the idea of Cancer Warriors, this is what I wanted. We’ve got bills to pay – the rent and utilities – once that’s gone, we can’t open the door.
“It’s only when we got the first bill that we realised, ‘Hang on, something’s up here,’ as it was something like £1,000. ‘We’re open Tuesday-Friday, from 10am until 4pm. We’re not using this amount of electricity.’
“We had to change utility suppliers and the day we came in, we were met by someone who wanted to read the meter. We took that as standard.
“When the guy read the meter, we thought that was the company getting everything it needed. I know he came as I was the one who let him in and he claimed he was from the company.
“We’ve done everything we can but the ombudsman came back and said,’ Sorry, they’re within their rights to do that.’
“We explained we’re a charity and we need the help. They just said, ‘No.’”
Chair of Cancer Warriors, Larysa Iwanyckyj, added: “We took over the unit and someone came to do a reading. We said, ‘We’ll stay with you,’ and he said, ‘We’ll get you on a tariff.’
“You don’t ask your meter reader for their name, do you? You let them read the meter and off they go. He waved a badge and said ‘I’m from Opus, I’ve come to read your meter
“Opus said they have no recollection but down the line, they said they’d got reading from when we first came in.
“We believe the reading on the system is the one from when we first moved in.
“Maybe we were partly to blame as we didn’t chase any bills up but when I did last March, they said, ‘Your bill’s about £8,500. You weren’t on a tariff, that’s why it’s so much.’ By the time I contacted them, we’d run up this massive bill.
“I said, ‘The guy that came said he’d put us on a tariff, so we can’t understand why.’ We went to the ombudsman but they said you’ve got to pay it, so we did.
“£8,500 is a lot of money to us, we’d do massive amounts with it and it would go a long way to keeping us open.
“Now we’re on a tariff but we need money to meet further rising bills. If we don’t get money coming in, we’ve got a couple of months’ worth left.”
The Correspondent contacted Opus Energy over the situation but they insisted they did not get a meter reading.
They said: “Opus Energy occasionally uses third parties to read our meters when required. They are not Opus Energy employees and do not discuss contracts or tariffs with our customers.
“We did not receive any meter readings for these premises from either one of our third-party operators or one of our field agents on or around the date of 1st September 2021.
“The meter readings we hold for this date were submitted to us via a previous account holder.
“If an independent broker visited the premises and a contract was agreed, we are unaware of this and have no record of a contract agreement with a broker.
“When Opus was informed in February 2022 that Cancer Warriors UK had been the active tenants since 1st September 2021, we informed them that they had entered a deemed contract which would be backdated to September 2021 and which had higher rates than a fixed or variable rate contract would.
“However, our sales team worked quickly to agree a fixed contract with the customer which would have lower rates.
“The total amount owed from 1st September 2021 to 6th September 2022 was £8,543.73 and was paid in full by the customer on 9th September 2022.”