Scottish Power - Requesting £600 for Incorrect Billing

Dru-2010

macman wrote: »

But SP can only bill you accurately if you supply accurate readings...if for 3 years (12 bills) you have relied on paying based on estimated readings, and either not submitted readings, or submitted inaccurate ones, it's not surprising that you have built up substantial debt. Their offer to waive £1,200 is incredibly good, I would bite their arm off if offered that!
On what possible grounds would you take it to the regulator?

I've not paid based on estimates...SP gas engineers have come out and took meter readings.....regularly for the past 3 years!

Dru-2010

Cardew wrote: »

When you move into a property you have entered into a legally binding deemed contract.

The estimated bills specifically state that you should check the meter readings and correct the readings - which you haven't done.

Looking at it 'from the other end of the telescope' had the bills been based on over-estimated meter readings and Scottish Power owed you £1,800, would you be happy that they said 'tough - we will keep the £1800'? Even if they only offered to pay you back £600 and keep £1200 I suspect you wouldn't be happy?

Anyway I suggest the first thing is to establish exactly how much you do owe, but if you get two thirds of a valid debt written off, you will be extremely fortunate.

Thanks for the post, but it has been SP gas engineers who have continually taken wrong meter readings for the past 3 years....I've allowed entry for meter readings since I moved in!

macman

But you said that you have paid 'estimated DD's' since you have moved in. By that I assume you mean that all your bills have been estimated? If you were receiving all these estimated bills despite regular supplier meter readings, why haven't you queried them?
PS: meter readers are not gas engineers, meters are usually read by a third party company.

Terrylw1

Dru-2010 wrote: »

Thanks for the post, but it has been SP gas engineers who have continually taken wrong meter readings for the past 3 years....I've allowed entry for meter readings since I moved in!

They can also send the day, night & total's incorrectly. However, if thats affected your bill, your Supplier can unscramble that fairly easily.

It's not uncommon to see this and a large bill generated.

If anyone for 1 occassion only put the total reading onto the one of these others, it will cause overbilled and when they enter the next read which will be lower, it could cause a roll forward.

Also, once the total has been used in error, staff may continue not really taking the time to look at it and keep the problem going...

prettyvacant77

macman wrote: »

But you said that you have paid 'estimated DD's' since you have moved in. By that I assume you mean that all your bills have been estimated? If you were receiving all these estimated bills despite regular supplier meter readings, why haven't you queried them?
PS: meter readers are not gas engineers, meters are usually read by a third party company.

This is correct, on your bill it would show if the reading was an estimate or actual.

Just because the meter readers came round, doesn't guarantee that the reading will be applied to your account.

Sounds daft but YOU need to check your bills and ensure that meter readings are listed ACTUAL, not estimated.

There's nothing stopping you reading the meter yourself and submitting a reading to the supplier.

You're about to learn the hard way (as many, many people do) that you need to actively manage your utilities if you want your billing to be accurate :cool:

Cardew

Dru-2010 wrote: »

Thanks for the post, but it has been SP gas engineers who have continually taken wrong meter readings for the past 3 years....I've allowed entry for meter readings since I moved in!

Yes I understand that.

The problem is that all billing is handled by a computer and untouched by human hand!

If a reading is submitted that the computer 'thinks' is wrong, i.e. outside of the parameters it is programmed to accept, it rejects the reading and substitutes an estimated reading.

Now you clearly were using far more electricity than the computer 'thought' was possible. Or perhaps the initial readings were incorrect - transposed perhaps?

From then on, unless there is human intervention, the computer will keep rejecting the reading and estimate meter readings.

You should have contacted SP and told them - as your T&Cs state.

Anyway the upshot is(assuming the bill is now correct) you have had £1200 written off, which most of us would consider a good deal.

maxmycardagain

go to the meter NOW

dont touch!

what rate is showing? 1? whats the reading? thats your day rate

press the button till "2" shows, note that too

pass onto your supplier

Scottish_Power

Hi Dru-2010

I am sorry to hear about your situation. I appreciate your view on being asked to pay back electricity that you have used previously, however with the way the industry works at the moment, the regulators are satisfied that if a utility company have made an error in billing a customer correctly for electricity, they can only back bill the account and ask the customer to pay the correct amount of money for the electricity used over the past 12 months.

This was an agreement made with the Energy Retail Association who believed that a utility company should take more responsibility when a billing error is made that results in a large outstanding balance. This is effectively the goodwill payment for the billing error. If there have been customer service issues after the corrected bill is generated then this can be taken into account.

I'm not sure if you have had a clear explanation of what has happened on your account but let me give you some information. We will have billed your account incorrectly and then realised the billing error. We then calculate what you were originally (incorrectly) charged up to one year previously then calculate what the correct charges should have been up to the same date one year ago. The difference in the amounts is the back billing adjustment that will be applied to your account and this will be split into energy and VAT. This adjustment ensures that we have not increased your charges prior to one year before identifying the error. The account is then billed on the correct rates up to date. The outstanding balance can be spread over 12-months or we can discuss a longer payment arrangement if this will help with your monthly outgoings.

This error can happen when your billing system is set up on the wrong tariff (i.e. 2 rate tariff) when you should be billed correctly on a 3 rate tariff. The meter readers will come out and update the correct meter readings on their data collector device and when this flows through to the billing system, only 2 meter readings are used. If this is the case then this is an error by the utility company and we are accepting this error by applying the back billing adjustment and writing off £1200 (approx) of electricity that you have actually used.

Until every household is installed with a meter that can automatically pass accurate meter readings to the utility company, there will always be a requirement for a customer to check the accuracy of the bills that are being sent and paid for. There are a number of options available to help reduce estimated accounts being used and if you have internet access in the house and can read your meter safely, then why not set up an online account. This way you can update meter readings as often as you wish and also generate your own statements. There are a large number of benefits to setting up an online account and you can find out more information by clicking on the link below:

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

If you have any more questions regarding the billing of your account please do not hesitate to ask and I will try my best to answer them for you.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

Dru-2010

Thanks Colin. I've been trying to resolve the issue with SP for a few days now but the rep dealing with my complaint isn't returning calls. I understand the points you've raised but what I would say is that our flat was rented out for over the past year (we've only moved back in a couple of months ago) and the energy bills were under his name, why can we be liable for his part of the bill when we've only just transferred the energy bills back to our name?

t0rt0ise

Bit of a change of story there.. LOL. Good luck to all those who tried to help!