Scottish Power false advertising???

carlandjules

Hi,
We have applied to Scottish Power for a quote on electricity prices (home is electric only). The price on their site and also confused.com came back with a 26.8% saving on our current costs, better than any other provider. We applied for it and when we got the paperwork back the prices were virtually double our original quote.
We phoned to complain and they dont even have an explanation for it but we were told we had to pay what was on the paperwork and NOT what we were originally quoted!!!
Does anyone have any advice on what to do. Do they have to honour the original quote?
They dont seem to care about the error. How many other people didn't check the paperwork properly and are paying more than expected and tied into a contract to do so.
Any help would be apprieciated,

Carl and Jules.

Joyful

Cancel your contract as it was not what you agreed to. They don't have to stick to it if its a tariff not available as their systems would not be able to bill it.

tuftyclub

yes, I am interested in this too - I got a quote which was 40% cheaper - so I won't be happy if it comes back with different rates.

MCGONIS

Hello I had a similar thing happen about 2 years ago. I done a price check and www.switchwithwhich.co.uk showed I would have saved with Powergen/EON.

I then signed up and input the same details and it said instead of paying £40 per month, I would pay £36. But once the supply transferred, I got a letter saying my monthly d/d would be £102.

I called them and explained all this. The operator said there was nothing they can do until the first bill is produced and if I was not happy about the £102 then just to cancel the d/d and pay on receipt of the bill.

I said you are meant to be cheaper than ScottishPower and I want you to at least match the amount I was paying to ScottishPower as per your own website.

Her reply was "WE ARE NOT SCOTTISHPOWER"

Well I was fcuking raging and moved my supply straight away and I got charged £35 for gas and £35 for electricity because I left my contract early. I wrote to head office and they reversed the charges.

Scottish_Power

Hi Carlandjules

Do you have a note of the original prices that you were quoted by the website? If you have this information, I would recommend contacting us and providing all of this information. If you believed that you had signed up to specific rate and when you received your welcome pack you were given different rates then we will be able to investigate why this has happened. We may be able to honour the original rates if these had not expired when you made the application. I would recommend putting all the information in writing and sending an email to [EMAIL="customer.services@scottishpower.co.uk"]customer.services@scottishpower.co.uk[/EMAIL]. That way you can provide all the details on the tariff you believed you were signing up to and you will be able to keep a record of the conversation.

If you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to help.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

darkblue_2

Damn decent of them to be on forums advising.

carlandjules

Thanks for the responses.
We cancelled the contract. We told them about the error and they said they would put a formal complaint through and investigate.
Scottish Power told us that due to our postcode we had to take the prices they said (online saver 11). Basically said there is nothing we could do. It doesn't make sense as one of the first things they ask for is your postcode!!! The same prices are still coming up.
They say it is how the software works things out, by the cheapest price rather than cheapest for our area.
Looks like we have to roll over and take it.

Scottish_Power

Hi carlandjules

This doesn't sound like a good service. If you are asked to put in your postcode and the system then provides you with prices for another area then we need to get that sorted. I will pass on this information to our sales team to investigate and see if we can rectify this.

Have a look at the link below to show the prices offered for our Online Energy Saver 11 tariff. Make sure that you are looking at the correct supply area code:

http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/pdf/OnlineEnergySaver11.pdf

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

carlandjules

hi colin.

We are in Shropshire so as far as I can tell we come under the Midlands umbrella at single rate, including VAT. Prices on the link you gave us say exactly what we were told originally, £14.921 for the first 225 kw/h and £6.448 over that. Please correct me if I am wrong but thats how I read it.

Terrylw1

See if your post code falls into the Midlands region on here.

http://www.energylinx.co.uk/electricity_distribution_map.htm

Just click on the region to see the post codes. It's not 100% as some are missing but you might spot yours.

carlandjules

hi Terrylw1,
Our post code does fall into the midlands area, SY4.