Scottish Power have registered a default!! :-O

TinyT1

OK, so 3 years ago I moved into a 2 bedroom flat with my partner. This is an all electric flat. The electricity was with Scottish Power and I set up a monthly DD for £60 as they said this should eb enough. 6 months later, I got a huge bill that showed I had used, on average, £90 a month. I thought this was quite high, but agreed to change my DD to £120 (£90 for the next 6 months pluss the debt from the previous 6 months.) But, In the june of 2008, I received another bill from them stating I have used £1,385 of electricity in 6 months!!! March alone was down as £330! I Don't bloody think so!!

I of course queried this bill, to which their reply was 'Our bills are never wrong'. I was refused a conversation with a manager, I called several times and refused to pay the bill until someone came round to look at my meter. In the meantime, I switched to NPower.

I received a phone call from them about a year ago and I requested a copy of the breakdown again (I had misplaced my own copy /). They sent me an old bill. I called them again to say I needed my most recent bill and breakdown. They sent an old bill again. I called them again to explain why I needed a copy of the breakdown and also explained that if an explanation could be provided as to why the bill was so high, I would pay it.

I never heard from them again.

In hindsight I should have called them back, but to be honest I forgot about it!

That is until I bought my credit report and there is a big fat default from Scottish Power to the tune of £845.

I don't know what to do! Any advise would be dreat!

dogshome

Hi TinyT1 - I'm surprised that you managed to Switch suppliers with that level of debt to SP.

However it seems you are still in the same 2 bed flat which it would appear has ECO7 heating - So at a guess your have 4/5 storage radiators and overnight water heating - The harsh reality is that this kind of set-up can run up an annual bill of £1200 - £1300, so it needs a monthly D/D payment of at least £100 to clear it - There things you can do, do you need to run the heater the the 2nd bedroom?
If there is one, try not to use the 'Day' boost button on the water tank or heaters. If there is a timer on the water tank, set it for just 2 hrs in the very early morning

So far as your run-in with SP is concerned you have found out the Phone desk is useless, you must WRITE to them demanding a full set of copy bills, and as they did not correctly resond to phone requests, head the letter Complaint

macman

How did you manage to switch with a debt of £845 on the account? SP would have blocked the transfer.

JasX

TinyT1 wrote: »

I received another bill from them stating I have used £1,385 of electricity in 6 months!!! March alone was down as £330! I Don't bloody think so!!

yeah thats an easy amount of electricity to get thru in an all electric place if you turn your electric heating up, my boss burned thru £1500 in six months last year when he rented a flat with electric panel heating.... he quickly learnt his lesson.

Basically you more than likely did owe the money, you can improve your credit report a bit by paying the money you owed and getting it marked as paid off but it'll take 6 years to drop off your file

TinyT1

Thanks for your replies, however I do not have storage heaters, or an overnight water heater.

I have 3 electric heaters and if hot water is needed we just switch it on for an hour. We only use 1 heater (in the living room) a lot and do not use heating overnight.

Since switchin to NP my bills have gone down to £512 a year with no change to our routine.

I have also spoken to other residents in my block who have confirmed their bills have never been over £1000 a year.

I wasn't aware an electricity supplier had the ability to block a transfer. Lucky escape I suppose.

Scottish_Power

Hi TinyT1

From the information you have posted, it certainly does not appear to be right that we have billed you for £330.00 worth of electricity for 1 month when you are now being billed £512.00 for 12 months, with no change at all to your situation. I can certainly help you get the answers you are looking for.

I'm slightly confused as to why you did not know about the default marker earlier. If you stay in the same property that this debt relates to, then numerous reminder letters will have been issued to the property as well as default warning letters. If we had your telephone number, then we would have been trying to contact you by phone to set up a payment arrangement for the outstanding balance.

How did you leave it with us when you changed supplier?

I can look at the account to check the meter readings that were used to bill your account and make sure that there were no obvious errors. I will be able to confirm whether an estimated meter reading was used at any point in your billing and if so, how accurate this appears to be based on actual meter readings that we have received around that time.

Unless we have made an error in the billing of your account, then the default marker will stand and remain on your credit file for a period of 6 years.

Let me know if you have any further questions or if you would like me to investigate your account.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

davidgmmafan

I didn't think power companies could register a default. Oh well you live and learn. I honestly thought it was the DCA that would do that, when the power company effectively gave up on getting the money.

macman

Anyone can register a default. If the utility co. can't sell it on at any price then it won't go to a DCA.

davidgmmafan

I can't register one just because I feel like it though, I naively thought it was just you know finance type companies that could register a default as they had a credit agreement in place and part of that would be the ability to register a default.

I don't follow the second bit are you saying they CANNOT sell it on to a DCA as in they are not allowed? Or did you mean if they cannot sell it on (ie nobody will buy it/nobody will buy it for a reasonable rate) then it won't go to a DCA?

macman

Any creditor can issue a default notice, and is obliged to before they can consider taking legal action to recover a debt.
If a DCA thinks that it's not recoverable then they wouldn't be interested in buying it any any price, however low.

davidgmmafan

By default I mean something that will show up on your credit file, that's what I am getting confusede with. In this context does default mean this?

Or is it more akin to a letter before action an individual would send? Gaining a CCJ is the only way I can negatively impact another indivdual's credit rating. I didn't know power suppliers had the same powers as banks.