Help, shock £1202 gas bil!!!!!

robox09

Hi

As you can tell by the title I have received a letter from Scottish Power asking for £1202 as they had made a mistake and hadn't billed me for 24 months. I thought the direct debit I set up with them when I swapped from British Gas covered both gas & electricity but obviously not!!

I haven't got that kind of money to pay it off, they said i have to pay it or go to court!!

can anyone provide an advice please?

Thanks

bluebaron

Call them and explain. Tell them you can afford £20 (or whatever you feel is reasonable) a month.

KimYeovil

You have easier access to your meters than Scottish Power. You've had 24 months to bother to compare the readings on your meters with the figures on your bills. If you had looked you would have known they were undercharging and would have put the money aside (or told them.)

Cardew

robox09 wrote: »

Hi

As you can tell by the title I have received a letter from Scottish Power asking for £1202 as they had made a mistake and hadn't billed me for 24 months. I thought the direct debit I set up with them when I swapped from British Gas covered both gas & electricity but obviously not!!

I haven't got that kind of money to pay it off, they said i have to pay it or go to court!!

can anyone provide an advice please?

Thanks

What do you mean by "haven't billed me for 24 months"? i.e. no bills at all?

Do you mean 'haven't billed me correctly?'

robox09

Hi

Just looking for advice kim yeovil, as I said in my thread I haven't received a bill for 24 months, they admit in the letter "they haven;t sent me an account for 24 months because of a previous misalignment in their records"

Just looking for advice on the next step, thanks

duchy

Ask them for an installment plan-if they say no then any judge is likely to simply order one anyway and if they say yes -you got what you need. I'd suggest you put the request in wiriting though not via phone-calls so you have a papertrail to produce if it does go further. Even if they say no-make installment payments anyway-it shows willing and puts you in a better light.

Cardew

robox09 wrote: »

Hi

Just looking for advice kim yeovil, as I said in my thread I haven't received a bill for 24 months, they admit in the letter "they haven;t sent me an account for 24 months because of a previous misalignment in their records"

Just looking for advice on the next step, thanks

If they haven't sent you a bill(of any sort) for 24 months then under the Billing Code they can only back-date charges for 12 months.

They know this ruling, so there must be something missing in this situation, as I can't believe they would try it on.

You not receiving a bill is not the same as them not sending a bill!!!!

Have you got some more details, how much was each of your DD's?

What bills have you had? for gas? for electricity.

What does their letter say?

robox09

Hi

That's right I haven't recieved an gas bill for 24 months according to Scottish Power, they state in the letter they are reviewing billing records in my area which indicated they have not sent me an account for gas for 24 months.

I'm a single parent with a very busy life between work & school, like alot of people I'm sure, so when I set up an account with them to pay £46 per month, I was under the impression that covered both gas & electric as when I provided my bank details for the direct debit I didn't think with them supplying both utilities they would only charge me for one!!!

I understand people may say I should have questioned not being billed, but I didn't notice also as I say thought my direct debit covered my utilitiy bills as I pay direct debit for all bills so I don't have to worry about remembering to pay bills it's just automatically done.

The letter admits they are at fault.

Joyful

As Cardew said if they have never actioned a bill they can only charge you for 12 months use. They should also give you 12 months to pay this back.

beliver

had this myself if they have not actually sent any bills they can only bill u for the last 12 months its called the back billing reciving bills .....i rung the northern electric they said i will have to go on instalments but i was not happy so rung complaints they can overide all the joeys and do the back billing rule

good luck if u have no joy threaten with the ombudsman lol:beer:

LittleMissAspie

robox09 wrote: »

I set up an account with them to pay £46 per month

Does this bill take those payments into account? £1202 is about £50 per month so you've either been using £96 of energy every month (which seems a lot for a small household), or you've covered most of it already.

Also make sure the reading on the bill matches the reading on the meter, they might have estimated.

Question: if no readings have been taken for the whole period, how will they know what the last 12 month's usage is? Would they just estimate by halving it?