Scottish Power Direct Debit Problem...

Maharishi

Hi there, we have been on Scottish Power (Electricity only) for nearly 2 years and, as our capped time is nearly up, I decided to manage the account online as they offered a modest discount for going paper free billing...

The recent price rises have seen them reassess our usage and we received an email mid September informing us that we would have to increase our DD from £54/ mth to £84/ mth. It would automatically commence at the higher rate on October 27th. Imagine my horror when upon checking my account last night I find that they had started the increased payment from 27th SEPTEMBER thus dropping the bank account into the red.

What can I do about this please? There must be some recourse when a compnay says one thing in writing and then does something completely different?

Thanks in advance.

M

Froglet

I would ring them up straightaway and check that it is their fault.It may just be your bank which has made the error,in which case you are covered by the Direct Debit assurance that if money is taken by mistake it will be refunded.i had this happen once with my bank and they refunded all the charges.

If it turns out to be Scottish Powers fault then i would hope they would look at compensation for any charges too.I have just started with them and have found them very pleasant and helpful when i have had a few queries.

Maharishi

Froglet wrote: »

I would ring them up straightaway and check that it is their fault.It may just be your bank which has made the error,in which case you are covered by the Direct Debit assurance that if money is taken by mistake it will be refunded.i had this happen once with my bank and they refunded all the charges.

If it turns out to be Scottish Powers fault then i would hope they would look at compensation for any charges too.I have just started with them and have found them very pleasant and helpful when i have had a few queries.

No Frog, it's definitely SP who are at fault as they requested the £84. I am hoping to get something back from SP because of the dip into the red allied to their incompetance. When I was on paper billing they would say that they were going to change the DD at will but it was always in very small print on the bill. So much so that I missed it the first time.

M