Czech energy regulator probes fraudulent offers to recover overpayments from Virtual Energy

The Energy Regulatory Office (ERÚ) is investigating suspicious offers to recover energy bills or overpayments from Virtual Energy. In these cases, a person contacts the company’s customers, promising to arrange their bills and charging them high fees. The office says this is fraud and is preparing a criminal complaint, it reported today. The office has recorded a rise in complaints about Virtual Energy, which follows on from suppliers whose licences were revoked. CTK is seeking comment from the company.

In recent days, the office has recorded a rise in complaints in which consumers describe a similar story. According to ERÚ, a person contacts potential clients and promises to arrange for Virtual Energy to issue a missing bill and return an overpayment. The person most often visits customers in the South Moravian and Zlín regions and charges several thousand crowns for the service. They also allegedly demand up to a further 40 percent of the overpayment being recovered. The office says the person even accompanied some seniors to an ATM so they could withdraw money.

ERÚ is warning against such practices and has urged customers to be cautious. „It is already striking how a stranger would obtain such specific information about a particular consumer—namely, that they have not received a bill from their supplier and are owed an overpayment. Since these are customers of a single trader, we suspect that personal data may have been misused. We cannot rule out the possibility that the conduct described is intended to reduce Virtual Energy’s outstanding liabilities to its customers,“ said Jakub Med, director of ERÚ’s administrative proceedings division.

The regulator has recently recorded a larger number of complaints about Virtual Energy, mainly concerning unpaid overpayments on energy bills. The company is the legal successor to the supplier Elgas Energy, which followed on from the supplier Lidová energie. ERÚ revoked both companies’ licences to trade in electricity and gas in the past because they owed customers large sums.

ERÚ will file a criminal complaint in response to the complaints. „Because we suspect a crime has been committed, we will refer the matter to the police for investigation. I firmly believe that, combined with our public warning, this will help prevent more people from becoming victims,“ said Markéta Zemanová, a member of the ERÚ Council.

She then recommended the standard procedure for customers who have not received a bill and are owed an overpayment by their supplier. „The first step is to ask the trader to issue the bill. If they fail to do so even after being prompted, it is possible to initiate a dispute resolution proceeding with ERÚ. An unpaid overpayment can be recovered in full only through enforcement proceedings; alternatively, the claim can be deducted in instalments from advance payments through a so-called set-off. Everyone can find the exact procedure on our website. We should certainly not trust a stranger who says they will sort everything out with the supplier—especially if they show up at our door,“ Zemanová said.