ScottishPower Blackmail...

Pebblo

Hi all, woundering if anyone can offer me any advice....

I've been on a pre-payment meter for years (cards). Never stopped anyone comming into the flat to change the meter tarrif/charges etc.

Changed to the Electronic Key meter* (because the cards are being stopped soon) anyway, got a letter last week saying we owe £222.47, then a day later got another for £230.64. This is for 6 months, I understand you can still build up a bill on a pre-payment meter (which goes against the point of a PRE-payment meter if you ask me) but £230 over 6 months works out at about £10 a week, which is how much we top up. So if we were getting lecky without paying and its caught us up I could understand, but we havn't!

OK, then, got a letter from them again, stating that they are setting the meter to take £16 a week to repay the debt. Which they have now done. In 2 days I've had to put £30 on the meter just to stay in credit. Surely theres something we can do about this. We contacted them, and all they say is its goign to take 7-10 days to investigate the money and any money they take for the debt they will repay if its proven that the debt isn't correct. Well, 10 days, £30 over 2 days, thats £150 for that wait!

We want to change to monthly payments with npower, but I dont think we can if they say we owe them money, can we?

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but had to explain. Does anyone know anything we can do to sort this out? fast! ScottishPower say they have put the debt down to £7 but again, that could take upto 7 days 'for the messages to get to the meter'**...

*Took them seven.... yes seven appointments to change a lecky meter...

**If they can set up a debt in 1 payment, why can't they remove it on one payment

Edit - appologes if this is in the wrong section

Fire_Fox

You haven't said if you are all electric, nor the size of the property or how you are using the energy. £80 a month is not that bad. There are several other threads from the lsat couple of days about this issue, use the search button on the main board page.

Hope this helps.

mazza111

I had the same problem in a flat i lived in. There was a prepayment meter in there, I was topping up weekly. Several months later a guy comes to read the meter, bang, £200 bill lands on my doorstep. I personally decided to pay it (i was in a position to do so, just too lazy to wait in for them changing meter), and also started an investigation with Scottish Power. I had some of my receipts for power cards but not all. We found out that the local shop had been selling stolen cards. For every 3 i was buying he was only adding 1 or 2 some weeks to my account. So my meter showed lots of credit in my meter but unpaid for stuff. Worthwhile checking your receipt for power cards. As i bought my cards from same place almost all the time, it was easy to spot where it was, and they actually caught him doing it. Got the money refunded and a decent meter put in.

Pebblo

Fire_Fox wrote: »

You haven't said if you are all electric, nor the size of the property or how you are using the energy. £80 a month is not that bad. There are several other threads from the lsat couple of days about this issue, use the search button on the main board page.

Hope this helps.

Its a single bedroom flat. Not big at all. Living room is about 6' by 4' at a guess, not at home so can't measure up atm, theres 2 of us there. We have both electric and gas. Dont use the central heating all that much, use the gas fire most of the time, but this bill is only the the elctricity/

Im not disputing the amount, it works at the right amount for the 6months, if we made no payments on the card and used stolen cards, but we havn't. Bought 80% of them from the post office, the rest from a garage. Im on a pre-pay meter, why should I owe a bill with that amount at all? I know it can go over, but surely not by twice the amount.... £460 for 6 months on electric alone, theres no way we use that much.

mazza111 wrote: »

I had the same problem in a flat i lived in. There was a prepayment meter in there, I was topping up weekly. Several months later a guy comes to read the meter, bang, £200 bill lands on my doorstep. I personally decided to pay it (i was in a position to do so, just too lazy to wait in for them changing meter), and also started an investigation with Scottish Power. I had some of my receipts for power cards but not all. We found out that the local shop had been selling stolen cards. For every 3 i was buying he was only adding 1 or 2 some weeks to my account. So my meter showed lots of credit in my meter but unpaid for stuff. Worthwhile checking your receipt for power cards. As i bought my cards from same place almost all the time, it was easy to spot where it was, and they actually caught him doing it. Got the money refunded and a decent meter put in.

As posted above, we bought most of our cards from the post office, and a few from the local garage when the post office wqas shut.

iolanthe07

Living room is about 6' by 4'

24 square feet is about the size of a small rabbit hutch. This can't be right.

KimYeovil

If that's a small rabbit hutch... . Pampered vermin. Surely you mean cubic feet?

Pebblo

Sorry, dont know why I put feet. At a guess 6 meters by 4. If its needed, I'll measure properly when I get home.

Tbh, it doesn't make much difference, as the only thing it would effect is the gas to warm the room, its not the gas we have an issue with, we use the gas fire to warm the room, and rarely have the heating on.

Should have added this earlier but only just come to mind. 6 months ago, we received a letter stating we were £124 in credit and that they would send us a check out. Which we received. We were on a higher tariff apparently.

This is why we are confused. 6 months ago, they owe us money. Now apparently its cost us £460 for 6 months. (We've topped up about £230 over the 6 months and they want another £230 from us) I could understand a small amount, obviously that can happen, but surely not double.

dumbbrunette77

If your old meter was a token meter, any price changes will not automatically be updated, an engineer will need to come out and reset the meter to make sure your paying enough. Is it possible that when the meter was changed your supplier realised that you hadn't been paying the correct rates and has billed you for the difference?

Pebblo

We've had pretty regular visits from engineers over the last 12 months. They've been out ever 3/4 months.

Fire_Fox

I think you need to ask your supplier for a full breakdown of the charges, what you have used and what you have already paid included. Also check that you have the same serial number on your bill as on your meter. You may be being charged twice for the same electricity (bill and prepay), you may be trying to play catch-up for several years underpaying (this is not acceptable but they may try), you may be being charged for some strange combination of old and new meter readings ....

If the engineers have been out so many times I would want to know why. Something fishy going on if you ask me.

SwanJon

Fire_Fox wrote: »

If the engineers have been out so many times I would want to know why. Something fishy going on if you ask me.

Not every engineer is trained to reset prices on a token meter, so it's not fishy at all.