Scottish power, please help

spongebobfancypants

I am having issues with scottish power, the email below explains it best....... please read and advise to where i stand with it all. thank you

I am emailing you regarding the very confusing letters that I have been receiving from Scottish power, Advanced Investigation Services, S C Gray Solicitors and Commercial Credit Services.

On the 14th September Scottish power wrote to me remanding £230.59 for the above account number. On the 5th November I then received a letter from Commercial Credit Services demanding £346.92 for the above account. On the 18th November I then received a letter from S C Gray Solicitors also demanding £346.92. On he 3rd December I then received a letter from Advanced Investigation Services remanding £265.18 and then finally today (13th December) I received a letter from Scottish power demanding £230.59!

So, to round up that's 4 companies demanding 4 different amounts for the SAME account!

The OFT Guidelines CLEARLY STATE that "using more than one debt collection business at the same time resulting in repetitive and/or frequent contact by different parties" is not allowed, yet you are doing so

I have responded in writing to all these letters with a payment offer and am still waiting on all counts to receive a response (copies of letters kept as evidence) .

I am now being threatened by doorstep visits, which from advise given to me you are not following OFT guidelines that clearly state that not giving adequate notice of the time and date of a visit is NOT allowed!

Your letters also demand that I ring 0871 numbers which again, is against OFT guidelines of "asking or instructing debtors to make contact on premium rate numbers"

The stress and upset your company has caused me is disgraceful. I am now in writing REFUSING to deal with any of the above companies other than Scottish power directly, to whom the money is owed too. If I continue to receive letters from the other 3 companies I will report you to every possible service with regards to your blatant tactics to confuse and scare myself into making a payment I have told you I cannot pay in full. I have made several attempts at resolving this issue and am getting nowhere, perhaps this is because you have no idea who exactly is dealing with this issue!

I DEMAND a response to this email urgently as I am not prepared to let this carry on much longer as Scottish Power are causing me unreasonable and unacceptable distress.

I refuse to contact you via telephone and want a response via email so that I have a copy of everything that is said as evidence, if needed.

I await your urgent response.

spongebobfancypants

:j

any thoughts?????

Scottish_Power

Hi spongebobfancypants

I am sure that we will have a debt recovery process that is fully compliant with OFT guidelines. I notice that we wrote to you on 14/09/10 requesting payment for the outstanding balance of £230.59. On final accounts, we will be looking for full payment within 14 days. If you are unable to pay within 14 days then we would be able to set up a payment plan for you clearing the balance over a 3-month period. Did you contact us when you received the final statement requesting a payment plan? If the balance is not paid and we are not contacted then we will eventually instruct external collection agents to recover the balance. The collection agents will add their own administration fees onto the original outstanding balance being requested by us.

The administration fees can be removed if there is evidence of an error on your account or where you have offered a suitable payment arrangement and this has not been processed. If you have not made contact with us regarding this final balance within an exceptable time, i.e. with the 14 days of the final statement being issued to you, then it will be unlikely that the administration fees will be removed.

Please let me know if you do not have an acceptable response to your email and I will investigate this for you.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

spongebobfancypants

thanks you, but yes, i contacted scottish power, made a reasonable offer of payment infititting with my circumstances and they refused it.

Scottish power have clearly broken oft guidelines, sending letters from 4 different companies all demanding different amounts.

I am still awaiting a response from them.

DVardysShadow

spongebobfancypants wrote: »

thanks you, but yes, i contacted scottish power, made a reasonable offer of payment infititting with my circumstances and they refused it.

Scottish power have clearly broken oft guidelines, sending letters from 4 different companies all demanding different amounts.

I am still awaiting a response from them.

This has been going for 3 months. Have you paid anything to SP? If they have not replied to you, that does not let you off the hook. Often companies look an debtors as being either can't pay or won't pay. If you make an offer and then send nothing, they are more likely to look on you as won't pay. This is not a good position to get into.

spongebobfancypants

i didnt make a payment as they refused it, and have since ignored all my letters which were sent to the collection agencies they involved (all 3 of them).

this doesnt make me a bad person, i have tried my best to sort it out and am hitting brick walls.

Scottish_Power

Hi spongebobfancypants

I fully understand your position if you receive a final statement with an outstanding balance that you were not expecting. As I do not have any details to review your account, I cannot confirm exactly what happened but would like to point out a few issues. If you were always paying your account quarterly then you will be familiar with this process and that an invoice is issued to you and we then look for full payment within 14 days. This would be no different if the statement is a final account as we will still look for full payment within 14 days before reminder letters start being sent out.

If you were paying monthly by Direct Debit then we would have tried to obtain the full final balance by Direct Debit and you would have had to cancel your DD so that we did not take the payment. Again, it is when we issue the final statement that you should be discussing a payment arrangement for any outstanding balance. Under normal circumstances we will offer a payment arrangement over 3 months if you are unable to clear the balance in full. This is an acceptable length of time if no errors have been made on the account. For the balance to be outstanding by this amount on a monthly Direct Debit payment arrangement, we would likely have attempted to read your meter and been unsuccessful and then the estimated meter readings that have been used will be far lower than what is actually showing on your meter for that specific date. Customers do have a responsibility to check any meter readings that we use and to make sure they match with what is showing on the meter. If a customer cannot read their meter and does not have anyone to check the meter for them, we will be more than happy to send a meter reader round to check this for them.

You say that this all started around September so we are now 4 months down the line. What has stopped you making payments towards your account to help lower the balance? This is regardless of whether the payment plan was agreed by ScottishPower or not. If you offered to pay £20.00 per month, we would now be in a position where you had paid £80.00 off your balance and we would more than likely agree to hold debt action to clear the balance at this rate.

Remember that the electricity has been used and due for payment. Extending a payment arrangement can be done if errors are made or in exceptional circumstances.

Would you walk into your local supermarket, fill the trolley with £230.59 worth of groceries and then try to walk out saying your not paying just now and that you will pay what you owe at £X amount per month? I know this is a little harsh but this is almost what is happening.

This is one reason for trying to remove the quarterly tariff that allows customer to use gas and electricity for a period of 3 months and then be issued with a statement. If you are unsure how much gas and elec you are using, then you may be very surprised when you receive a bill for 3 months worth of consumption. This is why we introduced a monthly cash tariff to encourage customers to make more regular payments towards their consumption so that they are not hit with a large unexpected bill.

P.S. Sorry for the length of this, just wanted to clarify a few areas.

If there is anything you are unsure about or you disagree with anything I have said then please let me know.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

DVardysShadow

spongebobfancypants wrote: »

i didnt make a payment as they refused it, and have since ignored all my letters which were sent to the collection agencies they involved (all 3 of them).

this doesnt make me a bad person, i have tried my best to sort it out and am hitting brick walls.

No doubt you have been hard done by, having 4 different bills. But as I read your opening post, they have not refused your payment, they have only ignored your offer. This is a very different matter. You should as a matter of course back up any offer of payment by actually making the payments you have offered. Doing this certainly makes it more difficult for them to set debt collectors on you.

spongebobfancypants

DVardysShadow wrote: »

No doubt you have been hard done by, having 4 different bills. But as I read your opening post, they have not refused your payment, they have only ignored your offer. This is a very different matter. You should as a matter of course back up any offer of payment by actually making the payments you have offered. Doing this certainly makes it more difficult for them to set debt collectors on you.

No, scottish power REFUSED the offer via email, and the debt companies then ignored my replies to them.

I do not know the workings of these companies and since they refused my offer, still making this payment didnt make sense to me. Yes, call me stupid for thinking this. I am not aware of the workings of these matters!!

spongebobfancypants

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi spongebobfancypants

I fully understand your position if you receive a final statement with an outstanding balance that you were not expecting. As I do not have any details to review your account, I cannot confirm exactly what happened but would like to point out a few issues. If you were always paying your account quarterly then you will be familiar with this process and that an invoice is issued to you and we then look for full payment within 14 days. This would be no different if the statement is a final account as we will still look for full payment within 14 days before reminder letters start being sent out.

If you were paying monthly by Direct Debit then we would have tried to obtain the full final balance by Direct Debit and you would have had to cancel your DD so that we did not take the payment. Again, it is when we issue the final statement that you should be discussing a payment arrangement for any outstanding balance. Under normal circumstances we will offer a payment arrangement over 3 months if you are unable to clear the balance in full. This is an acceptable length of time if no errors have been made on the account. For the balance to be outstanding by this amount on a monthly Direct Debit payment arrangement, we would likely have attempted to read your meter and been unsuccessful and then the estimated meter readings that have been used will be far lower than what is actually showing on your meter for that specific date. Customers do have a responsibility to check any meter readings that we use and to make sure they match with what is showing on the meter. If a customer cannot read their meter and does not have anyone to check the meter for them, we will be more than happy to send a meter reader round to check this for them.

You say that this all started around September so we are now 4 months down the line. What has stopped you making payments towards your account to help lower the balance? This is regardless of whether the payment plan was agreed by ScottishPower or not. If you offered to pay £20.00 per month, we would now be in a position where you had paid £80.00 off your balance and we would more than likely agree to hold debt action to clear the balance at this rate.

Remember that the electricity has been used and due for payment. Extending a payment arrangement can be done if errors are made or in exceptional circumstances.

Would you walk into your local supermarket, fill the trolley with £230.59 worth of groceries and then try to walk out saying your not paying just now and that you will pay what you owe at £X amount per month? I know this is a little harsh but this is almost what is happening.

This is one reason for trying to remove the quarterly tariff that allows customer to use gas and electricity for a period of 3 months and then be issued with a statement. If you are unsure how much gas and elec you are using, then you may be very surprised when you receive a bill for 3 months worth of consumption. This is why we introduced a monthly cash tariff to encourage customers to make more regular payments towards their consumption so that they are not hit with a large unexpected bill.

P.S. Sorry for the length of this, just wanted to clarify a few areas.

If there is anything you are unsure about or you disagree with anything I have said then please let me know.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

like you stated, you dont know my circumstances, which i have explained to scottish power, and of course you are going to try and make me feel bad for getting into debt, you work for them. However, these things happen and circumstances of the reason for being in debt are sometimes out of peoples control, as are mine. I have been upfront with scottish power and emailed then months ago and explained in full my situation and the circumstances behind it. I am not the only person in this postition and I am sick of being made to feel like a criminal for being in debt!

if i had completely ignored the letters etc, i would agree with you....... but i havent!

DVardysShadow

spongebobfancypants wrote: »

No, scottish power REFUSED the offer via email, and the debt companies then ignored my replies to them.

I do not know the workings of these companies and since they refused my offer, still making this payment didnt make sense to me. Yes, call me stupid for thinking this. I am not aware of the workings of these matters!!

Well, I imagine you would not disagree that you owe something. And if SP refused you in an email, hold on to the email.

Really, an email like this is a gift to someone in your position. But not if you play it the way you are going about it now. If you believe that you do owe something and you pay what you offered, despite their refusal, their refusal makes them appear unreasonable. But if you pay nothing, it is game over for you.

Only if they return payments should you consider not paying what you have offered.