ScottishPower huge increase with DirectDebit

Esoog

Cardew wrote:

Presumably you mean a pre-pay meter?

£500? 2 months = 61 days@£6 = £366

As they changed you, was that because you owed them money? If so your rate will be set at a higher than normal rate to recover that money and you probably will not be allowed to change supplier until the debit balance is cleared.

Thanks for the maths lesson there, note I said gas and electricity - we have two meters.. Its £6 a day for the electric. And yeah we owed them £200, so they set our debt at £500!! And according to the meter, in two months its gone down by....£20.

Cardew

Esoog wrote:

Thanks for the maths lesson there, note I said gas and electricity - we have two meters.. Its £6 a day for the electric. And yeah we owed them £200, so they set our debt at £500!! And according to the meter, in two months its gone down by....£20.

I did 'note' you said "gas and Electricity" I didn't 'note' in that post you said anything about the £6 being only on electricity.

So another maths lesson might calculate that if you have spent £500 on gas and electricity, and your debt has gone down by £20, that you have consumed gas and electricty costing £480. QED;)

Esoog

Well regardless of the finer details, something is definately not right surely?
Its set at a higher rate to recover the debt of £500 (even though its only £200) yet we've only paid off £20!? Despite having put on £370ish on?

Cardew

Esoog wrote:

Well regardless of the finer details, something is definately not right surely?
Its set at a higher rate to recover the debt of £500 (even though its only £200) yet we've only paid off £20!? Despite having put on £370ish on?

Agreed something doesn't seem right.

You must somehow get a record of your consumption in kWh. Armed with that information you can calculate accurately how much of the money you put in is for your usage, and the remainder obviously should go toward your debt.

droid1978

I was in same situation. Scottish Power took out a direct debit payment of £190 for the first month when we moved into our new house where they were the existing supplier.

I phoned them and they said they could not change the direct debit without doing a bill which they need the readings. Anyway phoned back again with the electricity and gas readings. They did a bill whilst on the phone and offered to reduce the direct debit to £150. I asked the question "how much had I spent in a month?". It turns out we had only spent £15 (E) and £20 (G). It was like pulling hens teeth to get this. Anyway they eventually reduced this to £50/month. Still think this is slightly high but as that October/November period was rather warm I think our bills were low.

Incidentally, Scottish Power are being taken over by a Spanish Company. I wonder if having more income coming in makes the company look more attractive.

irnbru_2

droid1978 wrote:

Incidentally, Scottish Power are being taken over by a Spanish Company. I wonder if having more income coming in makes the company look more attractive.

It makes the Spanish company less of a takeover target.

wearside_2

mrnkar wrote:

Just thought I would do a check seeing as they want to up my payments so much. Firstly annual usage which was previously £800 and last year it amounted to £1200, I couldn't understand it as I have been using more or less the same, until I checked and found how much their prices have increased. Last January for my gas I was paying 2.65p per first 1000 and 1.64for the rest. My last bill just received I am paying 3.45 first 1000 and 2.49 for the rest plus increases in Electric prices to of about 20%. How they can say their prices have gone up 17% beats me as one of mine is almost 50%. Think I may be changing my supplier very soon. Where can I find out how much different companies charg per kwhs.
Here is quick example from Jan-April I used 416 units of Gas and was charged £255 Sept-Dec I used 298 units charged £245 almost the same yet over 100 units less.

The question raised by mrnkar is a valid one and one that despite looking for some time over the past few months, cannot find the answer to. Does anyone know where we can find out the price different companies charge for units of gas and electricity

Cardew

wearside wrote:

The question raised by mrnkar is a valid one and one that despite looking for some time over the past few months, cannot find the answer to. Does anyone know where we can find out the price different companies charge for units of gas and electricity

I don't believe there is such list.

The problem is that for electricity there are different rates for each part of the country.
Then most companies seem to have several different tariffs, then different prices depending on how you pay, plus loads of differents financial incentives - dual fuel, paperless billing, Nectar points etc etc

On top of this the prices seem to change evey few weeks - so the list would be out of date almost as soon as it was updated.

wearside_2

Cardew wrote:

I don't believe there is such list.

The problem is that for electricity there are different rates for each part of the country.
Then most companies seem to have several different tariffs, then different prices depending on how you pay, plus loads of differents financial incentives - dual fuel, paperless billing, Nectar points etc etc

On top of this the prices seem to change evey few weeks - so the list would be out of date almost as soon as it was updated.

This is exactly the reason why it is virtually impossible to change supplier and be 100% satisfied that you have chosen the right provider.

angela110660

Switched gas to NPower back in the summer using the energy switching service. They estimated latest reading and then said that they had told our bank to increase the DD to £56 per month from existing £39. I read our meter and phoned it in - got the amended bill - DD is going up by £1 per month now.
Worth the phone call and the effort of working out the reading.