ScottishPower huge increase with DirectDebit

JohalaReewi

Scottish Power do allow you to negotiate a lower direct debit amount if you think their estimate is too high. I got mine reduced from £103 to £90.

Sulumar

My SP DD leapt from £48.50 to nearer £75 with their last review. Apparently with the monthly direct debits I should be in credit by the end of September and I was £15 out. Frankly, I prefer any credit to be in my bank, thank you.

With a bit of haggling they offered to reduce it to £67 after I explained that I'd had a new central heating heating installed last March and expected my costs to be less. I still think this is a bit high for my usage but they did say to ring back in a month or so once they have some Winter monthly readings. I've been taking readings religously every month since the system was installed and hopefully this will prove my point.

BTW has anyone been hijacked whilst in Sainsburys to swop over to their Nectar/EDF deal?

Vellum_2

Many thanks to everyone for their replies to my query.

I finally managed to get through to SP yesterday to query the new direct debit assessment, and they reminded me that I had been paying for capped prices over the last two years. (I must be getting old as I had forgotten that I had done this!). I gave them up to date readings for gas and electric so they could re-assess my usage in order to lower my new direct debit assessment - guess what! they arrived at a new figure of £94 instead of £90.

What I cannot seem to fathom out, they said if I phoned them in 3 months time with up to date readings, they could re-assess my usage more accurately for the winter period as they could only go back to Jan/Feb this year. I suspect that if I had asked why they could not go back even further, the answer would be "the computer won't let us".

I shall in future be submitting regular readings online - lesson learned.

mikeD

We used to be with Brit Gas but quite rightly changed to SP a couple of years ago. Last year we opted for their Fixed rate which in view of current circumstances seems sensible. However this runs out next year so we will be looking carefully at the options when this happens.

We keep a spreadsheet of our monthly usage of gas & electricity showing the various details of our consumption and cost analysis of both current and moving annual statistics.

We live in a three bedroomed house occupied by three people and pay a monthly DD of £55.50 which is about right for our routine usage.

The important thing to remember is, do not be afraid to complain and if your complaint is not satisfactoraly answered then move to a more compliant provider, ie. if you can find one. Here lies the problem the cost of gas to the providers is coming down but they seem to be reluctant to pass this on to the consumers. Lobby your MP and your provider to do something about this.

djohn2002uk

Vellum wrote:

Many thanks to everyone for their replies to my query.

I finally managed to get through to SP yesterday to query the new direct debit assessment, and they reminded me that I had been paying for capped prices over the last two years. (I must be getting old as I had forgotten that I had done this!).

Therein lies your answer...totally.
If you are on a capped or fixed rate, it must always be remembered that the more you save by being on that rate the harder you are going to be hit when it finishes. That doesn't mean you haven't saved for the period you were on that rate, just that from now on you have to pay what others are paying. The only way you could beat that is if that fixed rate lasted untill the prices came back down.
Hopefully we will see some movement in that direction in the next 12 months and then I and mikeD will not be hit as hard as you were next October.

smallblueplanet

I also use SP's online service (cheaper unit price) and update our useage every month or so.

I do this to check that our useage is fairly steady and that we are paying for (well just about) what we use. Keeping track of your units used will also make it easier to compare new providers.

Our SP monthly dd (for two in a 3 bed house) went down from £22.50/month to £22.00/month just recently.

djohn2002uk

smallblueplanet wrote:

Our SP monthly dd (for two in a 3 bed house) went down from £22.50/month to £22.00/month just recently.

Surely that's not dual fuel? We are also 2 in a 3 bed and pay £68/month.

Pinklepurr

With SP too. Originally paying £50 pm but they increased it to £93 pm as we were using more than we were paying for. Now that we have caught up it has reduced to £82.50 pm. Not great but better. We've switched to energy saving bulbs, only use the tumble dryer in an emergency etc. Hopefully it can come down a bit in the future. These figures are for 4 people in modern 4 bed detatched house.

hardpressed

Sulumar wrote:

My SP DD leapt from £48.50 to nearer £75 with their last review. Apparently with the monthly direct debits I should be in credit by the end of September and I was £15 out. Frankly, I prefer any credit to be in my bank, thank you.

With a bit of haggling they offered to reduce it to £67 after I explained that I'd had a new central heating heating installed last March and expected my costs to be less. I still think this is a bit high for my usage but they did say to ring back in a month or so once they have some Winter monthly readings. I've been taking readings religously every month since the system was installed and hopefully this will prove my point.

BTW has anyone been hijacked whilst in Sainsburys to swop over to their Nectar/EDF deal?

I was pounced on by a salesman in Sainsburys, sadly I found his accent very difficult to understand, didn't want to offend him by saying so . Told him that I would not sign up to anything until I'd read all the details, he gave me a leaflet so that I could compare prices. Haven't done anything about it though.

smallblueplanet

djohn2002uk wrote:

Surely that's not dual fuel? We are also 2 in a 3 bed and pay £68/month.

Nah we're out in the sticks - its oil-fired c.h. for us! At least we can pay by dd - £50/month.

The SP eleccy is on 'price-freeze' from Aug 05 - reckon there'd be another £6/7 per month if at todays prices....