Not paying cancellation fee

Sucker_for_sweeties

SwanJon wrote: »

Their argument is that by not opting out, you did implicitly agree to it. You also continued to use energy.

I think what you mean is that you never explicitly agreed to it, but that's not needed in this industry.

It gets worse if you are a (small) business user, they just roll it on so you are trapped.

As an aside.....were you 'THE' beancounter for aldus UK?

SwanJon

Eh?
I do enjoy playing devil's advocate, but not counting beans.

rsykes2000

Similar situation here, am pretty disgusted with Scottish Power. Moved into our new home end of Dec and SP supplied the former owner so we had to be with them to start with, my girlfriend supplied the readings to them on the day we moved in. She says (and I believe her) she did not ask to be put on a fixed tariff, just their standard one as according to the conmparison sites, for our usage SP are not the cheapest and we were planning to move away as soon as possible.
So, we cancel within a couple of weeks and to my disgust I see on the final bill received today that they are charging us 30 quid to leave a tariff we didn't ask to be put on - I assume they will charge this 30 quid for each of the gas and electricity ? She was not notified of this charge in her phone call to them, looking at the letters they sent they don't mention a cancellation charge either. They can't even get her name correct on the bill even though she spelled it out and what's possibly worse is that one of the letters has her name at the top with the address and MY name inside (eg addressed to 'Miss...', then 'Dear Mr...' (and yes we have different names)). Absolutely appalled by this and when she can get through on the telephone (they won't speak to me as even though one of the letters has my name on it she is the addressee) she will be querying this vehemently.
Yes we should have read the letter better, and noticed it saying 'discounted energy december 2010' but as I say, there is nothing anywhere on it that says anything about a cancellation fee.

SwanJon

You could ask to have the initial call listened too - they can't enforce the contract without a recording of your gf agreeing to it. If she did (unwittingly), then you may have to accept it. If they can't find the recording then I'd use that to say there is no binding agreement.

Premier_2

iamcornholio wrote: »

And why not?

...

No reason.

I was replying to the previous post which asked why you don't just see out the existing contract.

Scottish_Power

Hi rsykes2000

Sorry to hear about the poor service you have received.

Like SwanJon says, the original call can be listened to and if you were not advised of the cancellation charges on the Discounted Energy tariff then these will be removed. If you can remember the day and the telephone number used to make the call, this will help track the call.

As this was not a new sales agreement, no contract paperwork would have been sent to you and the account would have been updated based on the information provided during the telephone call. Contact us as soon as you can and we will investigate this for you.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

rsykes2000

Cheers SwanJon and SP rep. She has called and they have agreed she wasn't told of the lock-in initially. So, we wait for the final bill for the gas and there will apparently be a note on the account for the charges to be removed when we pay. Fingers crossed there is...

rsykes2000

rsykes2000 wrote: »

Cheers SwanJon and SP rep. She has called and they have agreed she wasn't told of the lock-in initially. So, we wait for the final bill for the gas and there will apparently be a note on the account for the charges to be removed when we pay. Fingers crossed there is...

Well, an update. A bit of a convoluted one, and Scottish Power don't fare too well in the customer service side of things...
We got their agreement that they would not charge the £50 for 'leaving early' a tariff we did not agree to initially. Got the final bills for gas and electricity and they both had charges on, totalling £50. My fiancee called them and they took a payment of (approx) £38 for the final gas bill via card over the phone. I checked online a few days later and they had actually taken (approx) £58, even though they said they were taking £38 because they had included the 'leaving early' charge even though they agreed it was not to be taken (side note, is this not illegal to agree something and then take more ? Not an avenue I intend to pursue, just another example of shoddy treatment).
So utterly disgusted with this behaviour she called yesterday and straight away after looking at the records and listening to the calls the complaints team offered a refund of all overpayments and an offer of £20 for the inconvenience. So now we await a couple of cheques and when they arrive, we will not ever use Scottish Power again. I can't recommend highly enough to people to stay away if at all possible from Scottish Power.