what to do with scottish power??

Laithy01

ok so when i moved into my flat we signed a direct debit mandate for scottish hydro electric to pay £45 a month for our electricity. simple!!
we paid the 45 a month and it was fine, we recieved bills saying our account was in credit or debit till november. In january i recieved a bill from scottish power for 770 pounds from may till jan. i got on to them and told them that they werent our providers. i was wrong. turns out they were our providers and we had been paying the wrong company. with a bit more investigation i found out that our meter had been changed last may, which i didnt have a clue about. we hadnt recieved anything from scottish power at all saying nothing about any account till jan. i got onto scottish hydro electric who confirmed they werent our supplier and refunded what we had paid them over the 9 months. but am now stuck with a bill for 770+ from scottish power and what scottish hydro electric gave me doesnt even cover half of it.
what i dont get is that why scottish power didnt send us any bills or anything out till jan, seven months after they put in the meter.
if anyone has any advice about this, or it has happened to them then thoughts would be greatly appreciated. am moving flat again in a week and i would like this to be sorted.

frugalmacdugal

Hi,

is the meter outwith your flat, otherwise, methinks, you would've known about the meter change.

Do you mean a change of supplier, again, you would've known.

Thing is, whoever was the supplier still has to be paid for usage.

KimYeovil

I doubt that there would be a 50% difference in price. So you must have been underpaying Scottish Hydro.

As you were not billed by Scottish Power and had no reason not to suspect anything you are protected by the back-billing rule which means you are only liable for twelve months of bills. Oh. That doesn't help.

I think you should write a simple letter with the details of your useage. Have a look at Scottish Power's current tariffs and work out a price based on them. If that is significantly lower than they've demanded then simply explain the situation - you had no reasonable reason to suspect anything was awry. You would like to offer the lower amount as settlement for your full consumption.

dogshome

Hi Laithy01 - All very strange - The meter change is a red herring as meters are usually changed on an 'old age' basis, but from whom did you get the info. when you moved in that your supplier was Scot Hydro?
The likely hoods are that the previous tenant made a Switch from Scot Hydro to Scot Power but the Switch failed, or that your account was 'slammed' by Scot. Power.

What to do
Write to both Scot Hydro & Scot Power demanding a history of your account with them
Check your present meter reading against the End Reading on Scot Powers bill for it's viability.

Check the tariff rates on Scot. Hydros bills against those on Scot. Powers, as apart from any differential in the cost per Kw, you will have been getting a D/D discount from Scot Hydro, but not from Scot Power.

The name of the game is to show that if you had known Scot.Power were your supplier, you would have opted for thier cheapest tariff, including any D/D disount, that you were denied this opportunity because of their tardy billing and you expect them to adjust thier bill accordingly.

You don't say if you have Gas CH - If you have, £700 on Electric in 9 months is a huge amount, but if you are all electric, it's about right
Good Luck

Premier_2

Laithy01 wrote: »

ok so when i moved into my flat we signed a direct debit mandate for scottish hydro electric to pay £45 a month for our electricity. simple!!
we paid the 45 a month and it was fine, we recieved bills saying our account was in credit or debit till november. In january i recieved a bill from scottish power for 770 pounds from may till jan. i got on to them and told them that they werent our providers. i was wrong. turns out they were our providers and we had been paying the wrong company. with a bit more investigation i found out that our meter had been changed last may, which i didnt have a clue about. we hadnt recieved anything from scottish power at all saying nothing about any account till jan. i got onto scottish hydro electric who confirmed they werent our supplier and refunded what we had paid them over the 9 months. but am now stuck with a bill for 770+ from scottish power and what scottish hydro electric gave me doesnt even cover half of it.
what i dont get is that why scottish power didnt send us any bills or anything out till jan, seven months after they put in the meter.
if anyone has any advice about this, or it has happened to them then thoughts would be greatly appreciated. am moving flat again in a week and i would like this to be sorted.

Hi Laithy01, and welcome to MSE :hello:

When did you move into your flat?
Was that after May (when the supplier was changed) or possibly shortly before then? (the previous account holder may have asked for the change of supplier just before they left - a change of supplier typically takes 4-6 weeks)
That could explain the confusuion over the supplier.

Anyway, now that it is clear that SH was not your supplier, nice to see they have refunded all your money.

But... you still owe SP for what you have consumed. Check the meter readings on the bill (both start and latest) are actual readings to ensure you are only being billed for what you have consumed.
You may be able to agree a repayment plan with the supplier if you agree to pay monthly by DD (which is the method you originally agreed to pay SH by)

Keep an eye on your consumption. When a supplier agrees a monthly DD, initially this is only an estimate and may not match your individual consumption. Also, paying monthly by DD evens out the heavier winter bills compared to the lower summer bills, which may partly be why your current bill is a lot more than you originally paid SP monthly if you have only been in the flat a few months.

Scottish_Power

Hi Laithy01

Sorry to hear about your situation. You have been given some good advice already.

If you are interested in paying by monthly Direct Debit, we can rebill the account from the start date on a better tariff for you which will lower your current outstanding balance. We will also be able to arrange a payment plan to cover ongoing use and to clear the arrears over a period of 12-months.

If you have banked the money that has been given back to you by Scot Hydro, I would advise paying this amount to your ScottishPower account as this will help to lower the monthly payments required from you.

Without being able to investigate your account details, it is hard to confirm why there was such a delay in sending out an invoice to you. It certainly sounds like there has been errors with the correct electricity supply details for your particular address which is why Scot Hydro thought they were your supplier. I can investigate this further for you if you wish and confirm exactly what happened.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower