Financial Hardship and Scottish Power increasing direct debit

singingsister

I'm after some advise please.

We have a Scottish Power online account and duly completed an online meter reading as requested by Scottish Power.

However our usage over winter was fairly high (we have a baby) and as such, Scottish Power has decided to increase our monthly direct debit from £56 for duel fuel to £78!

I don't dispute using the energy however my husband and I have been made redundant and are experiencing financial hardship at the moment - only just being able to keep our heads above water.

We have applied for benefits but these are all "applications in progress".

I emailed Scottish Power advising them of our situation and asked them in light of it to temporarily reduce our direct debit back to the £56 and once we had our benefits and work situation sorted, we would arrange increasing the direct debit.

Scottish Power have point blank refused and said they can't decrease it and sent me an email with how they calculate usage and estimated usage (which helps me how?!).

I know they don't have any legal obligation to help us but we've not missed any payments but this increase will push us over the edge.

I'm sure the person(s) that emailed me are just emailing from a script so I want to take this further to see if there is someone that can help us in this case but I'm not sure who to turn too.

I tried calling yesterday to speak to someone but we only have a mobile and after calling their expensive 0800 number to find a 17-22 minute queue, I hung up!

Any advise on how to proceed?

DUTR

You don't to ask them, you tell them that the payments will remain the same for now, npower had tried similar with my Mum (however they had over estimated their predicted usage figures), your payments are covered by the DD gaurantee scheme, however , looking at the post, their (the power company )descision willl be based on logic not emotions, good luck to you both on the job front though.

singingsister

You say the decision will be based on logic. The logic surely should be that for the time being we can't afford to meet the new payments.

How can we convince/ask them to revert the direct debit back? Would what they have done be covered by the DD scheme?

I have, however seen on this forum the details for the Scottish Power customer representative so I have sent him an email hoping he can help us!

macman

You don't say how much your current debt is paying only £56pm, can you clear some of that debt with a lump sum payment. That way the DD shouldn't have to rise so much.

singingsister

macman wrote: »

You don't say how much your current debt is paying only £56pm, can you clear some of that debt with a lump sum payment. That way the DD shouldn't have to rise so much.

I recall seeing when I submitted the meter reading that it says we are in debit by £200. But surely over the summer months our usage will decrease (we've not had our heating on for 2 weeks so far!) so this debit will naturally reduce in time. We don't plan on changing energy supplier in the near distant future (think we're tied in till October off the top of my head) so why are they desperate to clear this "debt" now?!!!

I know they like you being in credit during summer to pay for winter but we cannot afford to do that at the moment.

It comes down to paying for a roof over our head or increasing this direct debit to SP. We can't afford both.

sp1987

Don't worry, it seems you certainly are not alone. You are lucky you didn't reduce yourself to speaking to anyone via telephone as the robotic and unsympathetic conversation just made me feel worse, lol. To be honest even if you can pay they want to make a hash of it. They don't let you pay what you owe in an affordable way and they have not told me what we owe but will be taking enforcement action over this unbilled amount regardless.

The customer service just does not seem to be there.

I'm not expecting this company to be providing humanitarian aid or anything but it is good business sense to not make people leave, especially when you work in an area where you are selling exactly the same product as everyone else so decent service is all that really sets you apart.

t0rt0ise

The thing is that they do let you pay as you want to but if you want the direct debit discount then you have to follow their rules. That seems basically fair to me. The alternative is to cancel the direct debit and come to another arrangement but lose the discount. That is not to say that you can't talk to them and ask to reduce the DD for a while but you do have to understand their view.