Check your accounts

welshwomble

I have my gas and electricity supplied by Scottish Power and pay £50 a month for both by direct debit.
When I logged on to provide my meter readings , I was surprised to find a credit balance of over £100. Yesterday they took the monthly £50 and my balance went up to £150.

I phoned Scottish Power who after a lengthy discussion, firstly offered to reduce my direct debit to £35 a month and then when pushed finally agreed to reimburse me the sum of £150.

Unfortunately, the £50 they took yesterday from my account pushed me into an overdraft situation, for which I am sure given that I do not have an arrangement a fee from my bank. I will be seeking to get this back from Scottish power on the basis. that they did not need to take the monthly £50 direct debit given that I was over £100 in credit.
Anybody else have this happen to them?

alipops1986

I'm afraid this seems quite a regular occurence.

I check my accounts - gas, water and electric regularly.

I've now had my gas reduced by £3 a month.
electric reduced by £5 a month.
water reduced to £6 a month.

Plus, i've had a refund from all three. They don't like to give money back but i believe in the present climate it's being encourage! :j

glider3560

It is the middle of the summer, so a credit balance of £150 isn't at all unreasonable. You need to look at your total annual usage and see if this reflects the monthly payment being made.

Cardew

welshwomble wrote: »

I have my gas and electricity supplied by Scottish Power and pay £50 a month for both by direct debit.
When I logged on to provide my meter readings , I was surprised to find a credit balance of over £100. Yesterday they took the monthly £50 and my balance went up to £150.

Firstly it is meaningless to check your balance at any time except immediately after your quarterly bill.

This is because they credit your account each month, but only debit your account quarterly.

Say, I pay £100 a month(to make the maths easy). I could look at my balance today (24th Aug) and find I am £320 in credit. Tomorrow(25th) they debit my account with a quarterly bill for £350 - so I have a £30 debit balance the day after I was showing a £320 credit balance.

At this time of year your account should be showing a healthy credit balance as with the winter approaching(and hence higher bills) that credit will be used up by Spring.

They probably refunded the £150 because they couldn't be bothered to argue any more.

Scottish_Power

Hi welshwomble

I will try my best to explain how an effective Direct Debit plan works so that you are fully aware of the consequences of what has happened on your account.

Firstly, a credit balance of £150 on your account at this time of the year is perfect and this would have been used to cover the increased gas/electricity that you will use over the winter months. This also helps keep your payments at a level amount throughout the year.

I have mentioned this before and it has also been discussed by other forum users who seem to be of the same opinion, but to have your Direct Debit working effectively, your payments should really be set at an amount that will mean you have a zero balance on your account come April. This means that over the summer months (when you are using less) you will build a credit balance that will help towards the higher winter consumption and should balance out again come April.

As you have removed this credit balance and not increased your monthly payments, your account is likely to create an outstanding balance over the winter months. This will mean no zero balance on your account come April, which in turn will probably result in your payments being reassessed and increased higher than the £50 you were previously paying.

I hope that your Direct Debit payment was not lowered to £35.00 as well as all the credit being returned?

To help you understand more clearly what level your Direct Debit should be set at, give us a call to find out what we hold as your annual consumption (in kWh). Once you have this figure for both gas and electricity, look at your unit rate for both and calculate what your annual charge should be. Add in any daily standing charge and VAT at 5%. If your annual charge for both is £600.00, for example, set your payments to £50.00 from April with no outstanding balance on your account at that time. If you do not change the level of gas/elec being consumed during the year, then you can relax and be confident that your monthly payment is covering what you are going to use for the next 12-months. Review the situation again come April of the next year, do not review the situation after 6 months to see if you have built a credit balance.

Let me know if you have any questions regarding the information provided or if you want me to confirm your consumption levels for you.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

Scottish_Power

Hi again

Sorry forgot to make reference to the overdraft. I appreciate your situation and that you may incurr bank charges as a result of the £50.00 Direct Debit payment, but this will not be reimbursed by ScottishPower. We have taken an agreed amount from your bank and have therefore done nothing wrong. Had we taken an amount that was not the agreed amount and we had not notified you of a change in payment then this would be different. Just because you had a credit on your account does not mean that we should not have taken the £50 payment.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

shortchanged_2

glider3560 wrote: »

It is the middle of the summer, so a credit balance of £150 isn't at all unreasonable. You need to look at your total annual usage and see if this reflects the monthly payment being made.

Exactly.

Sorry welshwomble but you will probably find you will have to pay this £150 back after the winter. So if I were you I put it aside and don't spend it or you may be in for quite a shock come March/April 2011 particularly if we have a winter this year like we did last year.

sofa-spud

Cardew wrote: »

At this time of year your account should be showing a healthy credit balance as with the winter approaching(and hence higher bills) that credit will be used up by Spring.

Sorry Cardew (and others with a similar view), nothing personal, but why should his balance be showing a healthy credit at this time of year?

This is providing them an interest free loan for services yet to be supplied. Personaly I always insist they refund credit and simply let my account go into arrears in the winter, knowing I will pay this off as (if?) the weather warms up.
If my debit balance gets large as it did this winter, the supplier is always quick to raise my DD but not to lower it when I build a credit.

Better my my pocket (or an interest bearing account) than theirs;)

Just my tuppence:)

shortchanged_2

sofa-spud wrote: »

Better my my pocket (or an interest bearing account) than theirs;)

Just my tuppence:)

To be fair though sofa-spud how much interest do you expect to gain on £150 over 6 months?

At least by leaving it with the utility company it is not in your pocket for you to be tempted to spend and judging by what the OP said going into his overdraft, he doesn't sound exactly flush with cash. By leaving it where is was he is less likely to get an unwelcome suprise after winter.

Fair enough if he had a credit of £500 or something but that £150 will soon disappear after winter.

welshwomble

Well it would appear that Scottish Power and others are getting away with a nice little scam in getting millions of people to provide them with an interest free loan.

I should add that having now reached the age of sixty I have a certain flexibility to my livestyle. Last year I took off for Portugal in November and returned at the end of January.

I will go back to the old system of a bill appearing and then I pay.

With regard to the bank charging me for the direct debit going through, well lets see about that.

glider3560

welshwomble wrote: »

Well it would appear that Scottish Power and others are getting away with a nice little scam in getting millions of people to provide them with an interest free loan.

So they don't give you a large discount for paying by direct debit? ...