Scottish Power what a Joke

chemer2011

Dear Sirs,

My girlfriend due to personal circumstances is leaving her place and moving in with me near end of October.

Her Gas and Electric were only recently set up beginning of August.

Now the problem is she lives above a Chemist and its hard to get her metre readings as they open odd hours. She finally got metre readings the other day after asking them. After a stay in Hospital and with a friend.

What is left now is a bill for Electric 243 pounds. Now her kids have not been there for at least 6 weeks. A teen was left there but she could not have amassed that amount of money. Besides she was at a friends and college a lot of the time.

2 lights were left on all day and every day for 6 weeks to deter burglars.

The Electricity used would still not amount to 243 pounds and yet Scottish Power are demanding she pay it before she leaves the property.

She is on normal benefits and has no extra income and its impossible for her to pay that kind of money.

Another thing is the first metre reading was never given to Scottish Power so really she should not be paying for their mistakes and they should find a way of working out what the last owners metre reading was before it was handed over to her.

Please help I know this sounds confusing but she is tearing her hair out.

Steve

yoda011087

Hi Chemer2011,

It would be of great help to those wanting to assist you to provide a few more details, for example, if the property's heating and hot water are electrically heated, as this may make a difference to the replies you are given.

Also a post of meter readings used for the entire bill period would be advantageous. In addition, a confirmation that the meter read was the one Scottish Power are billing to will be worth the time - if there is more than one meter being used for the property, this will definitely be worth confirming.

In your post you accuse Scottish Power of not doing their job properly in regards to taking meter readings but, unfortunately in most cases, it's an Occupier's responsibility to ensure they give the correct meter reading to open their account with.

Any change to the opening meter reading will affect the bills of the previous Occupier; Scottish Power will class this as a 3rd party dispute and will not get involved.

If your girlfriend rented the property, there may (should!) be some record of readings taken by the landlord / tenancy agency on dates when tenants move in / move out and an inventory which needs countersigning.

Regrettably, though, it sounds like a bad lesson learned for the future.

Regards (and best of luck!).

jalexa

chemer2011 wrote: »

What is left now is a bill for Electric 243 pounds.

From the bill post the dates the bill is for, the dates of the readings, the readings from the bill and whether the readings are shown as Estimated, Actual or Customer.

I recommend you make every effort to take a photograph of the meter, particularly as it is hard to access. Check that the serial number on the bill agrees with the serial number on the meter.

Scottish_Power

Hi chemer2011,

As stated it is not our responsibilty to take a meter reading when a new occupier moves in, however of it has been estimated and there are reads which clearly show the estimate to be inaccurate it may be something we can look at. If you e-mail me your details to [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] and I can see what can be done.

Kind regards

Graeme @ ScottishPower

wakeupalarm

Scottish power's billing system is a complete joke, so it doesn't matter what the readings are they will mess it up anyway and then blame everyone else.