We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum... Read More »
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Scottish Power's latest money-maker
Options
Why hasn't anyone else thought of this? You simply set the START meter reading of the latest energy bill to a much lower reading than the END meter reading of the previous bill and - hey presto - the customer gets billed for the same (in my case, over £50sworth of) gas TWICE :T
Ah, perhaps someone else has already thought of this
Ah, perhaps someone else has already thought of this
0
Comments
-
I've got a money making scheme when getting put onto a higher tariff with the same supplier.
Add a few 1000 to your meter reading and give them that reading when the tariff increases. I did that last year and I was still paying at my old tariff for 3 months.
Told them I had been on holiday when they wondered why my meter hadn't moved.0 -
I've got a money making scheme when getting put onto a higher tariff with the same supplier.
Add a few 1000 to your meter reading and give them that reading when the tariff increases. I did that last year and I was still paying at my old tariff for 3 months.
Told them I had been on holiday when they wondered why my meter hadn't moved.
Great idea. Make sure you stay within their "tolerance limit" - if you take the !!!! they'll send a meter reader, who will notice you're blatantly lying.0 -
Just to make things clear, I started this thread to illustrate how an honest customer was being rooked by an Energy Supplier.
NOT vice-versa0 -
Reading my electric meter, which has those wee wheels / dials can be a problem, so if I accidentally give the wrong figure ... I can blame that.
I have never done it before when a tariff changes, but did do once, by accident and ended up paying almost double for one month. After the incident I set up a simple spreadsheet, so now I can record gas and electric meter readings and see at a glance the kWh readings for each month.0 -
Er, can we move on from responses by market traders driving yellow 3 wheeler vans on this one - It's serious.
Polymaff's bills are computer generated which spits out thousands every day, so the chances are that the error on his/her billing is being duplicated all over the UK - and a lot of customers don't look closely at the bill, particularly when paying by monthly D/Debits
I would ask, (nay beg), polymaff to write a letter headed Complaint and report back on the reply0 -
... so the chances are that the error on his/her billing is being duplicated all over the UK - and a lot of customers don't look closely at the bill, particularly when paying by monthly D/Debits
I would ask, (nay beg), polymaff to write a letter headed Complaint and report back on the reply
Indeed, hence my posting to warn others that SP were up to something. Since my original posting I've spoken to SP's Complaints staff directly (as against talking to Customer Services). Their explanation is that it is down to a new accounting system. They've agreed to recast my 2014 billing and to pay compensation. I'll report back once I feel that the issue is closed.
In the mean time, yes, SP customers should check their billing from at least the start of the year to check that billing End Readings and Start Readings across and within that period are contiguous. In my case the error was a significant 235 cubic metres - therefore an overcharge of just about £100.
I cannot comment on electricity at present, there being other SP incompetencies which have resulted in my receiving no electricity charges at all since January. SP have promised me a proper bill - for both fuels - by 2nd June. Once this is analysed I'll report back if necessary.0 -
You are assuming they actually take any notice of your meter readings. When I switched tariff back in October 2013, I submitted slightly higher readings, and Scottish Powers simply did not produce a bill for the transition!
The next bill basically has a gap of three months from the previous bill. By working backwards, I deduced that they simply applied some kind of estimate for the transition, which did not appear online. There is a year's worth of downloadable statements, but the one that covers the transition period simply does not exist!
The even more bizarre thing is, the latest bill is GAS ONLY, even though they confirmed I am still a dual fuel customer.
Twenty years ago, I worked in a company that had a penchant for taking on Vietnamese boat people in some sort of work experience scheme, where the employer gets some tax perks and pays the trainees peanuts. Needles to say, if they can't speak English, the work suffers.
I am postulating Scottish Power is giving jobs to Sumalian pirates as part of an amnesty program, and getting them to calculate customer bills. No doubt they get some kind of UN subsidy for doing so.0 -
I cannot comment on electricity at present, there being other SP incompetencies which have resulted in my receiving no electricity charges at all since January. SP have promised me a proper bill - for both fuels - by 2nd June. Once this is analysed I'll report back if necessary.
And me they stopped billing me from late Oct.I have made at least 6 phone calls to them to sort it out and was told they are going to manually send me a bill for dual fuel.I not waiting for that to happen as nothing has been sorted for months.
Just hopeless and i really just want to pay what i owe and move to another provider.0 -
They've agreed to recast my 2014 billing and to pay compensation. I'll report back ....
If anyone is still following this saga, in summary ...
Well, no bill turned up on the 2nd - just a note on the website saying that it would be there on the 4th. On the 4th that note disappeared! On the sixth a new bill did appear - and what a bill. Rather than being a new bill, it unwound the faulty bill, then corrected it - AND, what do you know?, the gas part of the bill was correctly worked out.
Unfortunately, this bill introduced EXACTLY the same style of error - charging for the same energy twice by using wound-back start readings - in the Electricity part of the bill. So, back on the phone - and, again, complete disbelief from SP that they could be rooking me. "It'll balance out in the long term" seems to be their company mantra.
I think it unlikely that this is only happening to me.0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 351.1K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.2K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 453.6K Spending & Discounts
- 244.1K Work, Benefits & Business
- 599.1K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177K Life & Family
- 257.5K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards