Scottish Power Overcharging me on Economy 7?

macman

Col_A wrote: »

This is possibly due to some major error on the part of Scottish Power. I had a very animated conversation with them last night after they informed me that they've not been charging me for the heating side of my electricity for the last 2 and a half years! This is despite the fact that I give them regular readings from both of my meters (and occasionally have someone at the door to take readings as well).

Thankfully, due to some regulation to do with adjustments made that don't come out in favour of the customer, I can only be charged for the last 12 months of use but I now owe them over £600. The guy I spoke to in their Customer Care dept was very helpful but for them to allow this error to happen in the first place is crazy. I'm now in the position of having to almost treble my payments to them for the next 2-3 years to pay back the balance. This probably doesn't help your situation but thought you might want to be aware that they are prone to the odd monumental mistake!

Please could you elaborate on this please? SP cannot possibly know what proportion of your electricity you use on heating or anything else. If you have an E7 meter, it is possible that you have only been billed for the peak rate consumption and none of the cheap rate (if you have E7, then the majority of your off peak consumption is probably used to power your storage heaters and hot water, but SP cannot definitely know that)?
Have you only been submitting meter readings for the day rate and none for the night rate?

Col_A

I'm not an expert in electricity readings, all I know is that I have 2 meters. One is for my 'non-heating' electricity, the other solely reads the electricity used by my heating (radiators and boiler).

I honestly don't know how it all works but this is what Scottish Power told me last night (the phrase Comfort Control or something similar was used). Apologies if this is something different to Economy 7 but I don't know much about this sort of thing.

I have given readings to Scottish Power for both meters on a regular (every 3-6 months) basis since I've lived here, and as I said earlier, someone also occasionally comes to my house to take readings as well. Somehow, Scottish Power have now said that they were not billing me for the meter that records my heating and this is what has caused the issue.

macman

Comfort Control is a new one on me.
What sort of heating do you have if not on E7-gas CH or some form of electric CH?
Edit: is it this?
http://www.changeworks.org.uk/downloads/projects/Comfort_plus_control.pdf
It appears to be just normal E7 with some form of teleswitched weather compensation.
The bills you have been getting seem to have been for the day rate only, your night rate consumption hasn't been billed presumably-did you not notice this?
But I don't understand why you don't have a standard two-tier meter, assuming that this is quite a recent install.

Col_A

I've found a bill, it's called Comfort Plus Control and one meter is definitely for heating. I'm on a fixed price enegry tariff that lasts until September.

It's all electric storage heaters and I don't have gas at all. To be honest I never really paid much attention to it until yesterday!

macman

It's not 'for heating'. It's primarily for heating, hot water and anything else you care to wire to that circuit. The SP rep should just have said that you haven't been billed for the night-rate consumption.

KimYeovil

Col A, you are not 'trebling' your payments to pay back your debt - you are only paying back twelve months debt (apparently over three years) and are now having to pay for heating that you had hitherto had (mostly) for free. More than two thirds (probably) of that 'trebling' is to pay for your ongoing useage.

Scottish Power's 'mistake' has handed you a bargain. Yet you complain. If you think this is so outrageous feel free to offer them all the money that has been written off.

Col_A

Ehhh, I'm fully aware of how my payments are being made up in the future and that I've luckily got away with not paying for a portion of my electricity for quite a while so if you could cut the patronising tone I'd be grateful. That's not why I'm unhappy.

I'm more than happy to pay back what they're asking me but I think I'm within my rights to be unhappy that this mistake has been made. I'm not exactly rolling in cash every month though and I budget very stringently so when my electricity supplier takes readings from me on a monthly basis and tells me how much to pay them, I think I should be able to trust them to get it right and not hit me with a whacking great bill when they realise what they've done. I now have to completely re-budget against the new payment amount, which is a pain when you don't have an extra £100+ a month just lying around


macman - thanks for the info. My Scottish Power statement does say ComfortPlus Control:Heating against one of the meter readings, which led me to think it was just for that.

KimYeovil

What rubbish. If you 'budget very stringently' you would read your meters and estimate how much you had to pay. When what was asked was a fraction of what you expected you would have investigated further to identify the cause of the disparity.

Col_A

We can't all be experts in electricity meters now can we? I'm sorry but I'm providing readings, the electricity company are telling me what I need to pay, sending me balance statements and taking the money, I should be able to trust that they're doing it all correctly.

In any case, regardless of whether you think my budgeting is stringent enough (quite frankly couldn't care less if you do), when my electricity bill goes up by more than £100 a month through no fault of my own, I might have some problems finding that extra cash. Maybe you're rich, maybe you spend your time calculating these things out to the nearest penny, who knows. I made the mistake of thinking that the whole point in providing readings, getting statements and paying the bill when they asked was to actually save me from working everything out with a piece of paper and a pen myself.

I only joined this forum today to point out to the original poster that it might have been a mistake by Scottish Power so I sincerely hope that not all 'super fans' on this site are as patronising and condescending as you. Go and annoy someone else Mr(s) Know It All

KimYeovil

Col_A wrote: »

when my electricity bill goes up by more than £100 a month through no fault of my own

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