Scottish Power quote -too good to be true?

Cardew

I would think this is pretty standard practice from lots of sales staff in most of the utility companies and comparison networks.

If you employ staff where their salary depends largely on commission, you will get misrepresentation at best and lying at worst.

If you want a test, find the cheapest tariff for your consumption/area from a comparison website using kWH. Say for example it is BG websaver 3 paying £1200 a year.

Ring any company or website and say you are paying £100 monthly on BG websaver 3 and the great majority will quote you a lower monthly DD.(and not mention the £30 penalty for leaving that BG tariff)

I would add that if you are with, say, EON you will get a cheaper monthly DD quote from BG

Gerrard_8_lfc

I had a SP salesman at my door today.... He was explaining how it flashed up on the SP computer that I was paying too much.

Laughing to myself I let him continue he asked me about my tariff I told him it was Websaver 3. So when I told him this he told me SP standard tariff was cheaper than this.

After explaining that I worked for BG and with my discounts BG are by far the cheapest option for me at the moment he said the unthinkable.

desperation of a sales man he said.... "Well If you work for BG why dont you sign up for SP today and sign yourself back over for commison"

He also told me how BG use a 2 tier system and SP use a flat rate tier of 3 pence for gas and 9 pence for electric. each being cheaper than BG 2nd Tier ofcourse.

Thanks but no thanks.

markharding557

Gas 4.348 for first 4872 kwh pa then 3.416

this is more expensive than my rate with ebico i would have to use a lot for it to be cheaper

Premier_2

markharding557 wrote: »

this is more expensive than my rate with ebico i would have to use a lot for it to be cheaper

It would be wrong to simply compare unit charges of suppliers since every company other than ebico has a wide and varied confusion marketing strategy pricing plan.

e.g. if you used just 1 unit of gas that would cost 3.5p (exc vat) with ebico

However, under the SP tariff, that would cost 4.348p, but then the discounts apply.
e.g. £5.25 (inc vat) for online billing, for dual fuel so they'd be paying you to use their gas !!! :beer:
(and that's before the discount for dual fuel)

Fire_Fox

chrissiesurfergirl123 wrote: »

I am absolutely certain that this is a case of mis-selling. I was told by two different Scottish Power telephone sales people specifically that a total discount of £191.55 would be knocked off my actual bill. I even made then calculate the cost based on KWH and they knocked it off.

Needless to say i have cancelled the switch and have made a complaint to
Scottish Power about their sales people

You've done well to keep checking - most of us would have checked a second time and then believed the discount. Have you got the names of the people who promised the discount? If so I'd be inclined to let it go ahead and then ask for the discount later.

pegginout

I am an existing SP customer , I switched a few yrs ago via the quidco route!

I was offered this deal today, and was wondering if it was good. i would be locked in to SP until june 2010 or pay £50 to switch before.

Is it worth going for???
I wasnt offered the DD discount as I already pay by DD

chrissiesurfergirl123

Fire_Fox wrote: »

You've done well to keep checking - most of us would have checked a second time and then believed the discount. Have you got the names of the people who promised the discount? If so I'd be inclined to let it go ahead and then ask for the discount later.

Yes got the names of two of them and gave these when i complained. I just think other people should be warned of these underhand sales tactics. If this had been my mum who is a pensioner and not computer literate she would have been conned by these people.

Pegginout = you need to find out your kwh usage of gas and elec per year and use one of the comparison websites to find the right tariff for you

fseyyad

I have had a SP salesperson visit our house twice recently ( last time this afternoon ). He always insisted the SP tariff would be cheaper than our current rate ( from EON ). He told me the rates were 3.884p ( for first 1143kwh p/q ) & 3.11p for the remainder. And for Electric 15.661p ( for first 225kwh p/q ) & 10.394p for remainder. He was not clear on the discount after these prices but said it was approx £159.
After the first visit I did a bit of checking and i did change my tariff to EON ( energy online extra saver 14 ) which does save us approx £180 based on 21000 for gas and 5000 for electric ( previously EON Age concern tariff ). So I thank him for that.
He came back today and I showed him our letter from EON with the rates and % discounts that apply ( to Sep 2010 ).

He insisted his tariff ( discounted prices to July10 ) were cheaper overall. They are not - he should know this or he being misleading.
The rates he kept on quoting were VAT exclusive when comparing to VAT inclusive on our document.
And the worst part he insisted that we would get an approx £159 discount on top of the rates he quoted. Now this is either a lie or he does not understand the tariff. I asked him the calculation of the £159 and he couldn't provide it exactly, but said it was a proportion of our total spend. The document he was reading from was also not entirely clear but my reading of it was that you could save £159 by switching from a standard SP tariff and then moving to direct debit, online billing and the discounted prices to July2010. He was implying that we could save this £159 by moving from EON to SP. Surely he must know this is a false statement.
He told me not to use price comparison websites as they get commission!

He said he would visit again when he was in the area next time. I'll tell him that he is trying to mislead us at that time.

st999

He told me not to use price comparison websites as they get commission!

Of course they do, how else do they make their money.

Best thing I ever did was make a spreadsheet with my yearly usage for gas and electric and all I need to do now is put each company's tariff to see who is the cheapest then go to them direct.

Thanks for the reminder I think Hydro Electric are due sometime soon.

And yes I know it is no longer called hydro electric just like I know it is no longer the gas board.

Stan

chrissiesurfergirl123

Quote: fseyyad

"And the worst part he insisted that we would get an approx £159 discount on top of the rates he quoted. Now this is either a lie or he does not understand the tariff. I asked him the calculation of the £159 and he couldn't provide it exactly, but said it was a proportion of our total spend. The document he was reading from was also not entirely clear but my reading of it was that you could save £159 by switching from a standard SP tariff and then moving to direct debit, online billing and the discounted prices to July2010. He was implying that we could save this £159 by moving from EON to SP. Surely he must know this is a false statement."

Exactly my point fseyyad they are quoting a "saving" against their standard non-direct debit tariff and saying that it is a discount against another tariff. At best this is a terrible misunderstanding on their part and at worst it is blatant misselling probably for their profit. In three separate employees of Scottish Power told me this was a discount, but it took an employee of theirs who was just out of training to tell me the correct info.

Thank you for posting feyssad at least I know it is not just me!