MSE News: Scottish Power faces probe into 'unfair' lock-ins

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"The energy regulator is considering whether Scottish Power is unfairly locking customers on a popular fixed rate deal that ended last month onto an expensive capped tariff..."

Read the full story:
Scottish Power faces probe into 'unfair' lock-ins

joe134

Well Craig, you are gonna get some flack now.Who,d be an SP rep?

KimYeovil

Perhaps their ridiculous and unfair cashbacks to "new" customers should be investigated. Giving away £250 cashback per year to customers who spend less than £100 on fuel is ridiculous. Even giving £250 cashback to average customers who spend £550 is ridiculous. They should have data systems in place to recognise and block repeat cashbacks.

joe134

KimYeovil wrote: »

Perhaps their ridiculous and unfair cashbacks to "new" customers should be investigated. Giving away £250 cashback per year to customers who spend less than £100 on fuel is ridiculous. Even giving £250 cashback to average customers who spend £550 is ridiculous. They should have data systems in place to recognise and block repeat cashbacks.

My thoughts entirely.it,s about time the loyal customers were better served. Try telling that to them though is like banging your head against a brick wall. I give up, if you cannot beat them, join them.Hopefully my next move will be my last?:rotfl:

bunking_off

I'd have to be honest & say I'm a little puzzled by this. I still have the email that Scottishpower sent me on 14/8 (so 6 weeks notice), which read

Taking care of your energy needs, just the way you like it
Your Fixed Price Energy Offer ends on 31st August 2009 and because you're an important customer to us, we want to let you know what happens next.

If you're happy to cap your prices for the next 12 months, you don't need to do a thing. On 1st September 2009, we'll automatically move you to a great new deal called Capped Price Energy September 2010.*

With this deal you'll have peace of mind knowing that over the next 12 months your prices could go down, but they definitely won’t go above the capped rates.

There may be a cancellation charge if you decide to end the new deal early.** But, if you stick with it, you’ll have the reassurance that your prices will not rise above the capped rates until after 31st August 2010 – whatever happens to the market.

Option to opt out
If you don't want to protect your prices and would prefer to move to our standard monthly Direct Debit prices please tell us before 30th September 2009.

Standard monthly Direct Debit prices are currently the same rates as Capped Price Energy September 2010 prices and could go up as well as down.

*ScottishPower's Capped Price Energy September 2010 guarantees that prices will not rise above the capped rates until after 31st August 2010. Capped prices correct as at 3rd August 2009.
**We may apply cancellation charges inclusive of VAT of £30 for electricity and £20 for Gas if you switch to Capped Price Energy September 2010 but then cancel your supply contract or switch to another tariff before 31st August 2010. These charges will not be applied if the supply contract is cancelled due to a home move.

...which for me is pretty explicit that if I didn't opt out there'd be a penalty fee to subsequently do so. I don't think the "it could end up in junk folders" argument holds much water, because the preceding offer was an on-line tariff that required you to submit meter readings, and reminded you of this via email on a regular basis (so if they were being blocked it should have come to light before).

I did make a conscious decision to roll-over & stick with them. There was one deal in particular that was far cheaper on the comparison sites, but it was a grab-it-while-you-can as the supplier concerned (forget who) hadn't updated their tariffs recently. On fixed/capped tariffs, the SP 2010 deal was competitive. I could understand anyone who took the option to flit, but decided not to for my circumstance.

epsilondraconis

bunking_off wrote: »

...which for me is pretty explicit that if I didn't opt out there'd be a penalty fee to subsequently do so. I don't think the "it could end up in junk folders" argument holds much water, because the preceding offer was an on-line tariff that required you to submit meter readings, and reminded you of this via email on a regular basis (so if they were being blocked it should have come to light before).

In my case I never received the email from SP explaining the situation, even though I was on the online tariff that ended 31st August and I always received their other emails reminding me to enter my meter readings. I only learnt of this penalty fee through MSE.

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding that they weren't informed of SP's approach to locking in customers.

Upon learning this via MSE, I contacted SP and got them to switch me onto the standard tariff (I've taken screen shots of my online account to prove this), plus I'm switching to EDF and getting the cashback.

You never know, if SP are really lucky, I may even switch back to them in the new year (and get some more cashback).

Scottish_Power

Hi Folks,

The article is correct in letting you know that we are speaking to Ofgem with regards the recent Fixed Rate maturity and subsequent offer to move to Capped 2010, however this is not unusual as we are in constant contact with the regulator to keep them fully updated as to the deals we offer our customers.

Clearly there are some customers who felt unhappy with being offered an automatic move onto a new capped rate and have decided to switch suppliers and we have not stood in the way of any customer wishing to leave. There are also a large number of customers who are satisfied that we have taken care of their requirements and are happy to stay and take up the new offer.

We have offered what we feel is a reasonable amount of time for those people affected to make their decision to take up the offer and there are other tariffs available to those who wish to remain with SP, but not on the Capped 2010 offer. It is purely a case of giving our customers a choice.

Please be assured that it is definitely never our intention to keep customers with us against their wishes.

Craig @ SP

1carminestocky

Personally I hope you get a LARGE fine but relax, it's OFGEM. You'll actually not GET a fine but you will BE fine.

jumpedtheshark

I don't see the problem here - where's consumers' personal responsibility gone? If you're on that fixed price deal and know when it ends, even if you didn't hear from Scottish Power asking if you want to opt out, you should have contacted them yourself to see what would happen when the deal expired and then decided whether you wanted to stay with them or not.

I was on the fixed price deal, and was very aware of when it was ending, so looked around for alternative deals to decide whether I wanted to stay or not. As it turns out, I also received an e-mail. If you receive meter reading e-mails, it's hard to believe that this one would be the only one to get marked as spam.

If you can't take care of looking into what happens when the fixed price ends, don't take capped deals. Just like you shouldn't stooze if you can't prepare for when the 0% ends, or take any mortgage deal that reverts to a standard rate after a period of a couple of years unless you're able to make decisions as to what to do at that point.

MSE should be educating consumers, not promoting the idea that it's OK to be an uneducated, uninformed consumer and blame the provider. If Scottish Power are fined, who pays? The educated, informed consumers. I think OfGEM has bigger fish to fry than this, like the over-charging of consumers forced to use pre-pay meters.

clairehi

big thanks to MSE for flagging this up.

I was on this SP tariff, but the email came while I was on hols and I deleted it without reading as just looked like junk mail.

I spotted Martins article on it and realised it applied to me! have now moved to the standard online tariff, but this has prompted me to check out the competition so Ill be moving to a cheaper deal with EDF and £60 cashback. bye bye SP !

1carminestocky

This is what MSE should be all about. Sadly, why they seem to avoid getting involved in the npower 'sculpting' scandal is not only a mystery but a major disappointment. I'm suspecting the sums involved with that far outweigh the sums involved here. Oh well.