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davidgmmafan

"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."

Look I try to be as fair minded as the next bloke but this opinion clearly is groundless for the reasons given. I currently get £100 annual discount, on top of the £40 cashbakc I recieved and am on an online tariff.

I COULD choose to not pay by dd thus loosing the £100 discount and the online tariff which is £200-£300 cheaper for the average customer.

The way I read the first post is you have spoken to an advisor or advisors who don't know what they are doing or cannot be bother to argue. Some people DO expect thier payments to exactly cover thier ccns every month but this is non-sense because for most people consumption varies.

Personally what I've chosen to do is have the DD discount, the cheaper online tariff, AND set my DD higher than it needs to be so I am in control. I can get a refund, if anything unexpected happens I'm a bit in front or have some leeway.

To add to the interest example consider for a moment also that to get a comparable example you'd need to reflect the fact that the payments are monthly, so even on a whacking great interest rate (of which there are none) you'd only be getting this for one month on the full amount.

By all means pay quarterly three months in arrears, but then don't moan that you are not on a much cheaper tariff and not getting a discount for paying by DD.