Doubling my Direct Debit a few months after signing up

ambyuk

A few months ago we switched suppliers, dual fuel, to Scottish Power. I gave them accurate usage information. They said they could save me money and my DD was set at 64 pounds a month.

Yesterday I get 2 emails from them, one saying they need a meter reading (they haven't had one since I switched suppliers), the other saying my usage is higher than estimated so they are upping my DD.. to 115 pounds! How they know my usage is higher when they haven't had a meter reading I don't know.

This seems like bait & switch to me.. "oh we can do your fuel for 64 a month, switch to us" then shortly afterwards "oh actually it's going to be 115". Can they really do that? I will give them a meter reading and see what that shows but seriously...

brewerdave

If you are signed up for an online account you can input your meter readings at any time to see what you debit/credit status is. This then gives you ammunition when you talk to them re your DD amount - they tried to increase my DD amount once from £110 to £165 per month until I pointed out that there were only 5 DDs showing on the account for over 6 months supply!!!When I completed a year at the lower amount they still owed me over £150!!!

Cardew

ambyuk wrote: »

I gave them accurate usage information

This seems like bait & switch to me.. "oh we can do your fuel for 64 a month, switch to us" then shortly afterwards "oh actually it's going to be 115". Can they really do that? I will give them a meter reading and see what that shows but seriously...

That is exactly what they do - lure you with a silly low DD.

Bear in mind that the staff are paid on commission - if you switch they get commission, if you don't switch - nothing.

If you have 'accurate usage information'(in kWh) then you should enter that in a comparison website and that will give accurate figuers of cost.

If you still have that accurate information - enter it now.

macman

Why don't you take your own meter reading and work out what you are actually using? Then you can negotiate a DD with them that reflects your real usage.

Scottish_Power

Hi ambyuk

Sorry to hear about your situation.

The large increase in DD may be due to our billing system holding an incorrect predicted annual consumption for you. This can be corrected by updating a meter reading with us. Each time you update a meter reading with us our billing system re-calculates your predicted annual consumption so that any payment reassessment is accurate.

Like brewerdave says, if you have access to the internet and you are able to read your meter, you can create an online account which will allow you to update meter readings as often as you please and create your own statements.

I used this service when I moved into my new property and for the first year I tried to update meter readings as close to the start of each month for 12 months. This way the system has accurate month to month consumption figures to use when reassessing your payments. You can then, at any time, refer back to your account to see how much you consumed over a given month or compare this years consumption with what you consumed last year.

Your initial Direct Debit should be correct provided your consumption has not increased this year and the consumption figures provided originally were an accurate assessment of what you use over a 12-month period.

Hope this information has been useful. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower