Scottish Power Indian Call Centre?

bexychan

I've been with Scottish Power for years. Untill last week they only called us twice in that time, both expected calls and both pre arranged. All of their other correspondence has been in writing and it has been a pretty harmonious relationship all in all.

We recently fell into a substantial ammount of debt with them through little fault of our own. They had been underestimating our bill for over a year, despite meter readings being taken. We acknowleged however that as the electricity had been used we owed the money and we came to a repayment plan that suited us both. They were very helpful and polite to us.

However, last Thursday, about an hour or so afterI'd arranged this plan in fact, I recieved a phone call from someone claiming to be from Scottish Power. It was an asian accented man and the line was rather crackly so I can assume it was indeed an asian call centre. He told me he couldn't discuss the account with me as it is in my husbands name. I said well I just called you an hour ago, why can't you talk to me? In fact, the reason we never put my name on the account is because we just never got around to it because we never needed to - SP have always dealt with me calling "on behalf" of my husband.

Anyway I figured since it was so close to the time of me setting up the plan the message hadn't filtered through the system yet and didn't let it worry me.

Yesterday, I got three calls from presumably the same asian call centre, all different people, none of them willing to talk to me. I told my hubby he better call them when he got back from work since SP obviously needed to discuss something urgent, and to put my name on the account so I will definitely be able to deal with anything regarding them in the future. He called this morning (doesn't get home until after their call centre is closed) and put my name on the account, and asked why they'd been calling, and if there was perhaps a problem with our direct debit...had we made an error with the account number perhaps...

Well the good news is that there has been no error, the direct debit plan is indeed all set up and the initial payment we made towards the debt has cleared no problem.

The bad news is there have been no notes on the system regarding any need to call us, neither before nor after the plan was set up. So why would SP be calling us if there is no need to, do they even have an Indian Call Centre?

I missed a call earlier today and took the phone number, 0844 8466 529. After searching online it appears to be an asian call centre working for some kind of "credit bureau" and are well known for nuisance calls. Had I been smart I would have taken the number down after my previous calls but I didn't so I have no proof that these are the same guys claiming to be from SP. However, we are lucky in that we don't generally recieve any telemarketers, surveys or debt collectors on the phone (thank you CCCS!) so it seems highly suspicious that suddenly we are getting these calls and this number crops up at the same time...my guess is that they are indeed this "credit bureau" who've latched on to the fact that we recently came into debt with SP and are now gonna try swindling us for money.

Am I just being paranoid, or have anyone else had a similar experience? If they aren't actually affiliated with SP, is there anything I can do to get them to stop if these calls do indeed continue? Do SP actually have an Indian Call Center?

Cheers!

Bex

Scottish_Power

Hi Bexychan

From the information that you have posted, it is possible that our debt collection process had kicked into place and you were at the stage of receiving telephone calls in order to discuss the account and set up a payment arrangement. If you then contacted us and set up a payment arrangement, the billing system will have been updated with the relevant details, however the change is an overnight process which may have resulted in you receiving calls prior to the account being updated with your new payment plan. If this was the case, then I apologise for any inconvenience that was caused.

You should not be receiving any further calls from ScottishPower if your payment arrangement has been updated. I would recommend contacting us to confirm this. If you want me to look into this for you just let me know.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to ask and I will be more than happy to help.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower