Scottish Power

HannahCF

I moved into my flat last August 08 and had a lady knock on my door saying she can do me a fixed direct debit till dec 09 of £30 a month. I thought wow, dirt cheap, so agreed, signed the things and off she went. After a couple of months that fixed direct debit went up to £50 a month and then went up to £75 a month and then went upto £100 a month. I couldnt afford it so cancelled my direct debit as my bank charges me if there isnt enough money in my account. I never received any bill from them at all for about 5 or 6 months and then one day I received a hefty bill of just over £1070 or something like that.

They fitted in a pre-payment meter and put on a debt of £6.45, so everytime I put money on, that gets taken off. In the summer I didnt mind at all, as £10 would last me the whole week, whereas now its winter time and its getting colder at night, I'm having to put my heatings on more. I dont put them on every night, just every other night. I live in a high rise flat with economy 7 heating and that costs £3 a night to have them on.

I am currently putting on £20 every 4 days. Thats to cover the £6.45 charge and so I can have a couple of nights heating. I also have started to put the washing on at night as it works out cheaper. Since my income support has changed over to fortnightly, especially come the end or beginning of the month, I really cant afford to put £20 in my meter every 4 days. Every time I try and get on to their webpage it doesnt load, not sure if its just my computer though.

Do you think they would make the debt cheaper so I dont have to keep putting money in my meter all the time? It would be easier if they didnt take any off at all, and just gave me like, a payment card so I could pay it when I had it..

Thank you.

gemstars

Hi OP,

I sympathise with you but if you've used their energy you're going to have to pay for it and no, they won't allow you to just pay some back when you have it. As you're paying such a small amount back per fortnight I doubt they'd allow you to reduce it but you could always ask.

In hindsight you should not have had a prepayment meter fitted as the tariffs are amongst the most expensive.

Have a look at what your using your electric on. The most expensive things are things that heat e.g. water, heating, tumble dryers, showers so see if you can reduce these when you can.

I'm also on economy 7. My shower heats it's own water and it's actually cheaper to boil a kettle to wash the dishes than heat a tank of water so I very rarely put the hot water on.

Using the washing machine overnight is cheaper than during the day, do you use a tumble dryer or dishwasher? Also do you know what hours your night rate is?

HannahCF

gemstars wrote: »

Hi OP,

IAs you're paying such a small amount back per fortnight I doubt they'd allow you to reduce it but you could always ask.

Using the washing machine overnight is cheaper than during the day, do you use a tumble dryer or dishwasher? Also do you know what hours your night rate is?

Hiya,

I dont pay it back fortnightly, I pay it back everytime I put money in my meter which is every 4 days!! I put the heatings on every other night and use my washing machine at night, unless I have a few loads to do, which is rare. I dont have a tumble dryer, shower, or dishwasher. My night rate is 12am till 7am.

gemstars

HannahCF wrote: »

Hiya,

I dont pay it back fortnightly, I pay it back everytime I put money in my meter which is every 4 days!!

I understood that.

Going on the data you've given it'll take you approximately 2 years to pay back the £1070 if you carry on as you are, I doubt they'd let you pay it back at a reduced rate.

How do your heaters work? Do you have the option to turn them down? Do you only turn on the heaters you're using?

I don't have one myself, but I believe using an electric blanket on your bed is cheaper than heating your bedroom.

HannahCF

I dont use the heatings in the bedrooms. I put the one on in the living room otherwise its like a ice box without it and I put the one on in the hallway to heat up my son's room as I took his door off to put the stair gate on.

factoryworker

HannahCF wrote: »

I dont use the heatings in the bedrooms. I put the one on in the living room otherwise its like a ice box without it and I put the one on in the hallway to heat up my son's room as I took his door off to put the stair gate on.

I sympathise with your situation; firstly Scottish Power prepayment fuel cost compares well with their standard tarif (i accept you dont get all discounts with a direct debit online a/c) and the £4.60 odd amount should be weekly (however lets say you put £10 on meter on Sunday but were previously using £2 emergency credit-as soon as you top up it will take debt pymt, then £2 leaving only £3 or so barely a days usage, so for the remaining weeks usage if you pay £10 this is less than fuel usage so you will revert to emergency credit again, and hence you will put on £10 again but only have £3 to spend on fuel-playing catchup) and is in line with industry standards of approx £ 5 week per fuel repayment. In this regard i don't think it is realistic to expect to pay less or for SP to reduce. Overall the amount of fuel your using, over low summer and high winter (heat) usage is not high, so the issue is unfortunately one of a low income, with fuel cost high relative to that.

to my mind, ultimately the only way to reduce your payments is to reduce the fuel you use. Simple things can make a big difference when added up; all lightbulbs must be energy efficient (5 for 50p at tesco/morrisons etc), set output on storage htrs to 1 so the heat is realised more evenly throughout the day rahter than too hot in morning and freezing in afternoon; im presuming you dont have gas, so when cooking it is cheaper to use a toaster than grill, cheaper to use a m/wave than your oven; do not leave TV's or PC or game consoles on standby; seperate digiboxes onto a seperate plug socket and put tv/dvd/video through another so all media can be turned off without affecting your sky box, and turn off at the socket not the remote. seperate printer form PC, and don't leave modem on constantly;don't leave charge bases for phones/mobiles on, and certainly not thru night; check the heat and timer settings for your immersion tank; water should be around 70C...you can generally tell if its too hot by running water-if after initial run through of cold pipes the water needs cold adding to as too hot on hands otherwise its set to high; think about when you use water- its pointless having immersion on during the day if noones in/using water during the day; write a diary of when you use water and set timings for to come on an hour before and for about half an hour after only; make sure you use cheaper night rate for water but have on max 1 1/2 before end of cheap rate not thru the night; don't use security lights, electric towel rails, halogen bulbs; buy cheap thick curtains to trap heat in and draw earlier in winter months, this will help to reduce imput on storage heaters and ultimately fuel used. Make sure your fride/freezer is working well - defrost at least once a year, use a brush to clean dust from elements at back, and make sure not next to a heat source (radiator/cooker) as this will make it work harder; put old newspapers and stuff in bags into your freezer to fill any gaps if not fully stocked, put tin foil behind rads to reflect heat back into the room. Get hot water bottles for you and your sons beds; (wouldn't reccomend electric blankets personally) Take daily readings to monitor your usage, and continue washing on cheap rate

Other than that, I would ring SP and suggest you were missold; to support this youd need to suggest the quote wasn't based on usage figures provided by you or by prev bills. they may make a discretionary (v.small) payment to appear caring. I wish you luck but small steps can make big differences

Scottish_Power

Hi HannahCF

If you are claiming benefits then we should be able to reduce your weekly debt recovery rate due to you not being able to heat your property during the colder months. I would suggest you contact us by telephone or email to discuss this as soon as possible.

Any change to your debt recovery rate can take up to 3 separate vends to action so I would recommend contacting us sooner rather than later.

factoryworker has given you some excellent advice and you should notice a difference if you implement these changes.

In relation to you being missold, this is an issue that you can raise with us and this can be investigated. If this was a door step contract then you would have signed a form agreeing to the information recorded, including your current level of consumption and the subsequent Direct Debit amount.

When you contact us I would raise the issue of you not receiving a bill for 5 or 6 months after the Direct Debit was cancelled. Under normal circumstances an invoice is issued to you as soon as a Direct Debit is cancelled. This then falls into our normal debt recovery process if the balance is not paid in full. You should have therefore received letters confirming the outstanding balance as well as follow up telephone calls. This can also be investigated when you contact us.

Let me know if you need any further assistance (email address can be found in our profile page).

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower