Gas - Scottish Power forced entry

brightgirl

Forced entry was attempted by SP even though I made payment last month and this months payment has not reached them yet. My landlord was forced to pay £592.09 by card otherwise threat of prepayment meter. Is it lawful for forced entry without contacting me?

I am nervous to contact them by telephone as I would have no record of the call and decided to take the email route.

Please help....



Email sent on 26th October;

Account: 6053620xxxx

Dear Sir/Madam,

I made a payment of £200 on 15th of last month for my Gas account. I tried to setup a direct debit on that same day but it was not possible according to your company. I acknowledge I still had some balance to pay this month but I was contacted by my landlord who stated that he made an on the spot payment of £592 as the door was halfway forced access and damaged the door frame.

Now I presume that your system failure and communications failure had me in your files as a non-payer as I did NOT have a balance of £592! There was no reason to attempt to breakdown my door. I now demand that you compensate me for the £800.00 replacement cost of the door frame as it has been left with screw heads showing and the locks have been impacted. I am the tenant therefore my landlord has held me responsible for YOUR actions.

My intention from my billing history even from my electricity account is always to pay, perhaps sometimes not on time but although sometimes I am in credit whereas your company owes me money (I have paid more than is due).

Basically, I didn’t owe you what you think I owed you although you only invoiced me twice this year. In the past I have received some silly bills including a demand for over £39,000 this summer.

Please see my history for my account as per below;

Date Bills / Charges Payments Balance

26/10/10 £577.62 £185.53 in Credit

15/09/10 £200.00 £392.09 in Debit

21/08/10 £101.92 (actual) £592.09 in Debit

17/05/10 £690.17 (actual) £490.17 in Debit

22/04/10 £200.00 £200.00 in Credit

08/02/10 £85.20 £0.00 in Debit

19/11/09 £85.20 (estimate) £85.20 in Debit

10/09/09 £139.00 £0.00 in Debit

Please make note that the above now shows £185.53 in credit. It clearly shows there was no need for legal and/or forced action as the balance of £592 was not due.

I look forward to this email being registered as an official complaint, receipt of compensation and what steps you will take to resolve this issue. I look forward to your reply.

Regards

Jennifer P

---

Reply received today (27 Oct 2010) from scottish power;

Dear xxxxxx

Thank you for your email.

Your account had an outstanding balance of £592.09 due to be paid. The reason this is now not showing on the account is because your Landlord paid it for you. I imagine he will expect you to repay this to him.

We sent you several letters regarding your outstanding debt and also advising you of the date the warrant would be actioned. We advise you on this letter that it is required that you are available to allow access to prevent us having to force entry. As you were not at home for this visit we were within our rights to force entry.

Any damage to the door due to the warrant is not our responsibility. You will be liable to pay the cost of repairing any damage to the door.

Regards
Customer Service Advisor

---

Update 27 October 2010



I clearly do not owe £592.09 and also they havent registered my communications as a complain either. I did owe £392.09 but I received a standard nonsense reply stating I owe £592.09 which was NOT the case. I sent an email to the Energy Omdudsman has responded with upto 20 days waiting, So I guess i`ll await the response
.
I have also sent the below as a response to Scottish power on 27/10/2010;


Thanks for your response. I did not have a balance of £592.09. I already wrote you my previous email explaining this.

Please read carefully before responding as now I will involve other parties into this dispute due to your incompetence and inabilities to understand where your company was wrong.

I now recommend you check, read carefully and respond again.

Yours Faithfully
xxxxxx

Account: 6053620xxxxx -

dogshome

Hi brightgirl - I see from your post that a figure of £592 debt goes back to the 21st of August, that was then part cleared in September, then fully paid on 26th October with a payment that may have crossed with action on the Entry Warrant.
However with the warrant being issued for £592, it would appear that SP did not get, or failed to record your £392 payment in September

As you have found, Email traffic on this sort of problem is pretty useless and you need to write a letter headed Complaint - It's then dealt with by a different Dept who are on a timeline to resolve it.
However you paid the £392 in September , ( Cheque, Card, Bank transfer?), you need to enclose a copy of the receipt with your letter and a copy of the bill from the landlord.

Cardew

It would appear from the SP letter that they had obtained a court warrant and informed you of the warrant by letter. You don't mention this in your initial post.

Once a warrant has been obtained it will be actioned and the fact that you paid £200 off a £592 debt is not a reason to prevent action.

From the facts above IMO you don't appear to have a case.

samtheman1k

Whilst I can't help with your case, I can tell you that an email to the customer services will not be registered as a complaint. They will have a progressive official compliants procedure, right up to getting an ombudsman involved. Check on their website for their complaint procedure and follow it to the letter...anything else will be fobbed off.

Scottish_Power

Hi brightgirl

Sorry to hear about your situation and the predicament you find yourself in now. Please allow me to clarify a few areas for you.

Firstly, on looking at the information you have posted, I am confused about the charges and payments you have posted. You have titled the table Date Bills / Charges Payments Balance, yet you seem to be missing the charges from the information posted. Let me highlight my concern.

1. On 19/11/09 you seem to have a bill for £85.20. On 08/02/10 you again seem to have another bill for £85.20 and this is all paid up to date. My question here is - Did you get two bills for different periods for the exact same amount or were you paying £85.20 by Direct Debit?

2. If you did not have a Direct Debit set up for £85.20 then this was the outstanding balance on 19/11/09. It would therefore not be the outstanding balance on 08/02/10 and you would have the cost of gas used between 19/11/09 and 08/02/10.

3. On 22/04/10 you seem to have made a payment of £200 and that this has then resulted in you being £200 in credit. What happened to the gas charges up to 22/04/10, because you would not be £200 in credit at this time.

4. It is possible that your account has been in debt for a long period which is why it got to warrant stage. The only way the warrant would not go ahead would be if the full outstanding balance was paid before the warrant was actioned. The fact that you made a payment of £200 leaving £392.09 is not enough to stop the warrant. A payment plan would need to have been updated on our billing system to stop the warrant. You mention that you tried to set up a Direct Debit. The only way a Direct Debit would not be set up is if the bank account details were not being recognised on our system.

5. A debt has to be outstanding for a long period of time before we will apply for a warrant of entry. If you do not have a payment arrangement in place then we look for an outstanding balance to be paid within 14 days. From the information you have posted, it is possible you have had an outstanding balance for 6 months.

Please let me know your comments regarding the information I have given and I'll be happy to review it.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

brightgirl

dogshome wrote: »

Hi brightgirl - I see from your post that a figure of £592 debt goes back to the 21st of August, that was then part cleared in September, then fully paid on 26th October with a payment that may have crossed with action on the Entry Warrant.
However with the warrant being issued for £592, it would appear that SP did not get, or failed to record your £392 payment in September

I copied and pasted that from my online account and it clearly shows £200 but even a SP email rep cant confirm that. They were still chasing up the original amount as if i was a non-payer.

brightgirl

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi brightgirl

Sorry to hear about your situation and the predicament you find yourself in now. Please allow me to clarify a few areas for you.

Firstly, on looking at the information you have posted, I am confused about the charges and payments you have posted. You have titled the table Date Bills / Charges Payments Balance, yet you seem to be missing the charges from the information posted. Let me highlight my concern.

1. On 19/11/09 you seem to have a bill for £85.20. On 08/02/10 you again seem to have another bill for £85.20 and this is all paid up to date. My question here is - Did you get two bills for different periods for the exact same amount or were you paying £85.20 by Direct Debit?

There was only one bill for £85.20, That was paid in full. After this there was also a payment of £200 therefore I was then in credit by £200.

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

2. If you did not have a Direct Debit set up for £85.20 then this was the outstanding balance on 19/11/09. It would therefore not be the outstanding balance on 08/02/10 and you would have the cost of gas used between 19/11/09 and 08/02/10.

I received a whopping bill in May and before that, a bill for over £39,000.

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

3. On 22/04/10 you seem to have made a payment of £200 and that this has then resulted in you being £200 in credit. What happened to the gas charges up to 22/04/10, because you would not be £200 in credit at this time.

You billed me properly in May 2010, so until any invoice is payable, it`s in credit according to my online account!

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

4. It is possible that your account has been in debt for a long period which is why it got to warrant stage. The only way the warrant would not go ahead would be if the full outstanding balance was paid before the warrant was actioned. The fact that you made a payment of £200 leaving £392.09 is not enough to stop the warrant. A payment plan would need to have been updated on our billing system to stop the warrant. You mention that you tried to set up a Direct Debit. The only way a Direct Debit would not be set up is if the bank account details were not being recognised on our system.

Bank details were not even taken. So you can`t even go down that road. A warrant for £592.09 is not acceptable where the balance was lower. Thats why after the on the spot payment on 26/10/2010, the account is now in credit. If it was the case, balance should show zero.

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

5. A debt has to be outstanding for a long period of time before we will apply for a warrant of entry. If you do not have a payment arrangement in place then we look for an outstanding balance to be paid within 14 days. From the information you have posted, it is possible you have had an outstanding balance for 6 months.

There has been no outstanding balance for 6 months! I even wrote a letter of complaint last year and it fell on deaf ears. Even a complaint showing in my complaints tracker just states "case closed", The resolution is please call us. If I wanted to call you then I would. I think Scottish Power is one of the most shocking utility companies in the UK! I am just getting the run around here.

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

Please let me know your comments regarding the information I have given and I'll be happy to review it.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

brightgirl

samtheman1k wrote: »

Whilst I can't help with your case, I can tell you that an email to the customer services will not be registered as a complaint. They will have a progressive official compliants procedure, right up to getting an ombudsman involved. Check on their website for their complaint procedure and follow it to the letter...anything else will be fobbed off.

Thanks for your post. Fobbing off is all i`ve had so far. I`m now checking the complaint procedure...

molerat

Are you saying that there was an oustanding balance of £392 before the warrant was executed ? If so the only way to stop execution would have been by full payment of the debt. You must have known it was going to happen and thought you could put it off by partial payment. The only chance you have of getting any recompense is by convincing the court that SP lied to get the warrant.

lemontart

also you would have been billed for the cost of the enforcement of a warrant, court costs etc so that may account for differences mentioned

brightgirl

lemontart wrote: »

also you would have been billed for the cost of the enforcement of a warrant, court costs etc so that may account for differences mentioned

There were clearly no need for it as I couldn`t pay the full bill (£500+) therefore asked if I could pay £200 and set up a direct debit. £200 payment was taken but no chance of direct debit. Pay it all at once otherwise we`ll trash your door!

I got an email from complaint dept today. They admit that they failed to setup a direct debit 6 weeks before the warrant date even though i insisted.

There solution to big bill being paid in 2-3 months was;

• Get a warrant (additional costs to customer)
• Trash the door (additional costs to customer)
• Fit a prepayment meter and recoup the initial bill and all the additional unnecessary costs over a very long period of time!

Its a horrifying experience for me.