Scottish Power cancellation fee

DComedian

I was incorrectly charged cancellation fees by Scottish Power when I closed my account, but fortunately I had taken a screen print when I opted out of the new package they had suggested I move to when my old package ran out.

I read this thread and contacted Graeme at Scottish Power at the e-mail address given above, and he phoned me the following afternoon to tell me that the cancellation charges would be refunded. I duly received two cheques in the post.

It is refreshing in this day and age to find a large company responding so quickly and efficiently to a customer complaint, and although I am now tied in to EDF until 2013 I would have no hesitation in returning to Scottish Power if they are offering the best deal when my new deal runs out.

I was glad to have taken a screen print when cancelling my account though, and would suggest this to anybody else who wants to keep a record of their online financial dealings with any company - otherwise it would have been my word against theirs.

MsVictoriaMeldrew

Well, I have to say Scottish Power were quick to sort out the problem and I have received a full refund of the cancellation charges levied. I would urge anyone wanting to switch at the end of their existing deal to let the supplier know in good time, to keep a copy of the correspondence and to request an acknowledgement.

This was the only mistake SP made with my account and the deal I got from them was very good at the time. So a small bouquet rather than a hulking brickbat!

madbunny

Now I'm confused - I had been on SP online saver 5 for two years and got the email that it was ending on 1st June, I've never heard any mention of a cancellation fee (apart from perhaps in the 1st year) so is there one for me??

Also I've read on their website about the bonus/reward you get if you have been in credit - how do you check if you've received those?

thanks

UnhappyCustomer_2

I was asked to submit my meter readings online earlier this year which I did and to my surprise Scottish Power then changed these with estimated readings which resulted in a higher charge as well as inform me that they were going to up my DD by another £7 per month even though i was always in credit.
So I switched suppliers via USwitch and cancelled my DD.

When I rang Scottish Power, I spoke to someone called Donna who assured me that if I stayed she would put me on a fixed term tariff until 2013 that would REDUCE my monthly bills. I pointed out that Scottish Power were in fact putting up their prices and couldn't understand how everyone else would be paying more but she, single handedly could bring them down for me. She promised to look into it and contact me......needless to say I never heard back from her.

Now I am being hit with a bill of amounts I don't know where they got from plus a cancellation fee of £30 even though I was no longer in a fixed tariff agreement as it had expired.

Can Colin, Graeme @ ScottishPower explain this to me please? I have sent in an email, prompted by this forum to [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] maybe you can check this for full details.

UnhappyCustomer_2

Update: 8th August 2011

I have recieved a response from Scottish Power who have investigated my complaint. They have explained the costs and agreed to refund the cancellation fee as they don't know why it was added.
I would urge everyone to question everything they are unsure of as there seems to be a lot of cases here of being charged cancellation fees when it wasn't warranted.

lightdavies

I have just been charged £50 for leaving a contract I was unaware I was even in.
I had no emails. It turns out that I was only 1week away from the end of this mystery contract. So I've been charged about £8 per day.

Warning Scottish power customers

alitwaij

UK Energy Companies Exploit the Public Via Cancellation Fees (My Story)

Energy Companies Continue to Rip People Off

David Cameron has advised people to use online switching sites to find cheaper energy deals for UK households. Well, I followed his advice and am now ending up with a cancellation charge after switching. Some may say I should have read the terms and conditions of my current contract but this is not relevant here. It's bad management and maybe deliberate exploitation by the Energy companies to maximise their profits.

When my current contract was nearing its end, I got an email from my current supplier, Scottish Power, that I need to think about changing to a new tariff otherwise I would be automatically put on a more expensive one if I did nothing. Following the UK Prime minister's (which I think is good) I went to see if switching to a new supplier would be more economical for me, and found that it was. They said it would take between 4-6 weeks and that was roughly when my current contract was ending. I filled in the form and started the process for switching, thinking I now was going to save myself some money.

The new Energy company, First Utility, kept saying they would handle everything and that I would need to do nothing, so I assumed they would be clever enough, or conscientious enough to bother to find out when my current contract was ending and to start me off after that date. Especially as they were going to be very near to each other. What I found was nothing of this sort unfortunately, and the representative I spoke to started blaming the industry processes for why they could not do that. When all they had to do for me to avoid a cancellation is to shift their start date by 7 days or so. Within their 4-6 weeks window, I ended up starting my new contract 7 days before the old one ended. Once Scottish Power realised this they gave me a call to inform me about the cancellation charge and asked to to contemplate cancelling my switching and to stay with them. A form of blackmail i suppose.

I refused and complained and asked to speak to the manager as one does. Who directed me to the customer services saying they were just an Outbound Sales Department in Glasgow. Why would sales be handling this issue, I dont know. Perhaps to try to win me back. The manager however was sympathetic with my situation though. Especially as I only started switching after they, Scottish Power, sent me a letter telling me my contract was coming to an end. And on initiating the switching they then decided to apply a cancellation charge. A good way of making money from the switching process maybe and thus to exploit the general public in an underhand way. Not sure if this is a deliberate policy, but it looked that way. Capitalism (greed) at work.

I decided after receiving this call to simply call my new Energy supplier , First Utility, to tell them to move their starting date forward by 7 days so that I dont get charged the cancellation fee. I thought this would be easier than calling Scottish Power and complaining to them. But unfortunately it seems that changing the date is not an easy thing to do for them. Even though we change dates a lot in our lives, as computers enable us to do such changes seamlessly and with great ease. But not so for First Utility. Maybe they dont have computers. Although they expect us to manage our accounts with them online.

Having told me they cant change the date I told them then the other option is for you to pay the cancellation charge. Since it would be your fault that i would be charged it. Obviously they refused.

So I then asked , "when you say you will handle everything for us when switching, why are you not able to handle synchronising the start date so that it starts when the previous account ends?". Can they not be bothered to sort this out for the poor customer? The manager there said the industry processes, or more specifically the intermediaries that run this switching process do not facilitate this for them. I asked why not??? What is difficult about this and why do these intermediaries not do that? Its a basic and simple matter. Not rocket science. Just start the new contract after the other one ends. Especially when you are at the end of the contract with the old one. She said started repeating herself, thinking that repetition will somehow help !

So in order to stop this exploitation by the Energy companies towards the General Public,the following questions are relevant I believe:

1) Why can the start date not be synchronised with the end date of the old contract?? And is this a responsibility of the energy companies or the intermediaries or official government bodies etc? As I said its not rocket science. And I think the website I did the switching form (via the MoneySavingExpert.com) collected this date. So I assumed that this date was passed to the new company and it would used it appropriately. What is going on?? I have a feeling that they simply dont care. It seems we have to do more to get them to act according to what they say.

2) This issue of cancellation charge. The companies should make it such that there is no charge when someone is changing during the last month of the contract. So that such issues dont arise. They should know that such issues will arise. This is because the switching date is not easy to fix during switching. That is why they say 4-6 weeks. So they should remove this fee in the last month or so. Otherwise it just becomes a way for them to exploit the customers (ie the people) in order to make extra income. Very wrong and the government should take such behaviour as exploitative practices and deal with them accordingly.

3) We should find out who is responsible for this cancellation fee problem and how many customers have been charged this fee without them being aware after switching. The sales assistant from Scottish Power said that it gets taken out automatically from the final bill. So many customers may have been charged this without being aware.

Conclusion:
This is another sad story that shows how Energy companies are (and have been) exploiting the general public. This behaviour should be stopped very quickly and any customer found to have been charged such charges during switching (near the end of their contracts) be refunded in full and the guilty Energy companies fined severally to teach them a lesson they hopefully wont forget.

thankyou

Ali Twaij

jamesmorgan

I have a similar experience to Ali Twaij. I am also with Scottish Power and in the process of switching to E.On for the same reasons. They key issue is that it appears it is not possible to synchronise dates so I run the risk of paying cancellation charges. E.On were trying to convince me to switch my current tariff at SP to SP's standard tariff. This apparently does not incur cancellation charges if you then switch to another supplier (although you do have to put up with higher charges until you have switched). I didn't fully trust E.On with this and have therefore asked SP what would happen. They have effectively refused to answer and just regurgitate the t+c's which are unclear in this area. My only solution currently is to cancel the transfer and then re-initiate it a couple of weeks before the end of my current deal. This eliminates the risk of cancellation charges but potentially means that I will be stuck on SP's standard tariff for a month before the transfer is complete. This will cost me about £25 extra (which is less than the cancellation charges but still annoying).

Rather than the government messing about with restricting the number of tariffs, it would be more useful if they ensured a more streamlined transfer process