Scottish Power £20 Contract Ending Charge

winders

Hi a friend of mine has been charged £20 (contract ending fee) when ending their dual fuel arrangement with scottish power. They had taken up the offer after being missold a dual fuel deal after receiving a cold call. They had scottish power for 31 days before cancelling. Is this £20 charge legal and if not how can they go about reclaiming it as they have already phoned Scottish Power and asked for the money back and been refused.

Any help gratefully received

Joyful

If they were miss sold it could have been returned to the previous supplier as an Erroneous Transfer. As they appeared to action a sale to go to another supplier instead then your friend has broken the contract and will need to pay the exit fee. Usually exit fees are on fixed or capped contract tariffs.

The only suggestion is to raise a complaint and see if this changes the situation.

Scottish_Power

Hi winders

If your friend agreed to transfer to ScottishPower via telephone then we will have details of a verbal agreement. All terms and conditions will have been discussed during the call and can also be checked. Your friend should have been advised about the cancellation charge verbally or sent a copy of the terms and conditions in the application details sent out in the post. If your friend was mis-sold a tariff, it is better that this issue is addressed before any other action is taken. As your freind has already made an application to transfer away from ScottishPower, we can no longer raise an erroneous transfer if he/she was mis-sold in the first place.

I would recommend that your friend contact us regarding the mis-selling. Make sure that your friend provides all the relevant information regarding the mis-selling and we can investigate this and hopefully get the matter resolved.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

bilb27_2

Hi, I have recently moved house to a smaller property(Bungalow). I received a letter once I had moved to say my monthly payment was inreasing to £194 per month. I was astonished as I work 5 days a week from 8 till 6. Does this sound correct to you? I requested the units be checked but was told this wasnt possible.

Premier_2

bilb27 wrote: »

Hi, I have recently moved house to a smaller property(Bungalow). I received a letter once I had moved to say my monthly payment was inreasing to £194 per month. I was astonished as I work 5 days a week from 8 till 6. Does this sound correct to you? I requested the units be checked but was told this wasnt possible.

It all depends on how much you consume.

Your meter will tell you how much you consume. If you have good reason to believe the meter is faulty, you can ask for the meter to be checked for accuracy, for which a charge will usually be made (although not if the meter actually proves to be faulty)

Scottish_Power

Hi bilb27

There are a number of factors taken into account when your monthly payment is reviewed, i.e. how much gas/electricity has been used so far, is there an outstanding balance on the account etc.

If you are online and have access to your meters, why don't you change onto an online tariff which will allow you to update meter readings and create statements as often as you like (weekly, monthly, etc). This way you will know exactly how much you are using.

Payments are normally increased for the following reasons:

1. Your previous payments were too low and not sufficient to cover your gas and electricity consumption.
2. Your consumption has increased and your previous payments no longer cover your consumption.
3. There has been a change to your unit price and therefore your monthly payment has to be adjusted accordingly.

I would seriously consider the online tariff if you have moved into a new property and are unsure how much gas/elec is being used. Have a look at the link below for more information on the benefits of this service:

http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/your-home/existing-customer/online-energy.aspx

You might also want to take a few minutes to fill out our online energy efficiency form (link below) so that we can send you a detailed report on energy-saving measures you could make in your home.

http://www.spowerlink.co.uk/cgi-bin/WS_powerlink.sh/system/powerlink/eaudit/wiz1.html?c=30&u=sco001-ext2

I hope this information has been of use. Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower