Only just moved to Scottish Power and they are now raising my DD - Help

jgallcash

Will check them actually. Thanks

EDIT** Interesting - Energy Shop and Uswitch are showing costs of £722 and £737 respectively; which whilst much closer is still over £100 difference.

jalexa

jgallcash wrote: »

EDIT** Interesting - Energy Shop and Uswitch are showing costs of £722 and £737 respectively.

I cannot say whether the Scottish Power calculation is right or wrong because I don't know the "annual review" date or how many payments were "missed" getting set up. The difference between £60 & £72 over 10 months (say) if it is 10 months to the review and you missed 2 payments is about 2 payments. So it's possibly not an "impossible" review, but you need to substitute actual data for my "guestimates".

*If* it is the case that Scottish Power has a "annual review" a full 12 months after you go live, that is not unfair (compared with the "distorted" approach of NPower, Edf, Eon and I don't exclude others) who adopt an approach which artificially inflates first year payments).

It is however important that you find out from Scottish Power the "annual review" date for your account.

dogshome

Hi jcallcash - Trawled thro' your excellent post with meter readings over time.
Taking the one year readings of Mar 08 - Mar 09, and the the 2 year readings Mar 09 - Mar 11, your average Annual consumption over 3 years works out to: Elec 2687Kw and Gas 6294

Enter these readings into 'switchwithwhich' It will come up with the usual list of supplier prices with the cheapest at the top, but also it has the benifit of a 'Compare' icon on each suppliers entries, which when pressed brings up that suppliers prices in fine detail, directly alongside the prices of your current supplier

Scottish_Power

Hi jgallcash,

If you still havent had a reply e-mail me at [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] and I will look at this for you.

If you are a new customer and we do not have any consumption history for you it is likely that we have recalcualted your Direct Debit based on estimated consumpiton, or for gas even used your AQ which we obtain from your gas shipper (this can sometimes be inaccurate). With the info you have supplier will certainly be able to set your Direct Debit at the correct amount.

Kind regards

Graeme @ ScottishPower

backfoot

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

If you are a new customer and we do not have any consumption history for you it is likely that we have recalcualted your Direct Debit based on estimated consumpiton, or for gas even used your AQ which we obtain from your gas shipper (this can sometimes be inaccurate). With the info you have supplier will certainly be able to set your Direct Debit at the correct amount.

Graeme,

AQ ? What is that please?

Don't know if you have noticed that your e mail address includes 'compalints'

not 'complaints'.

jgallcash

Wow hello everyone, what a great response!

The past two weeks at work have been very hectic so sorry for the delay in response. I also missed the requested call back from Scottish Power so whilst I was very pleased that they stuck to their promise to call me back (why am I so shocked?) I wasn't able to ask about review date etc.

That being said I have received a well detailed email response this morning, which is another welcome surprise. So far Scottish Power have actually responded very well and exceeded my expectations, pparticularly by posting on this forum to help out - Thank you Graeme. However they are not out of the woods yet!

Here is their response with the only obvious point being that they have estimated that the units I will use of both gas and electricity inaccurately (they don't have my meter reading history); I would appreciate any feedback you good people may have.

Dear Jgallcash

Your account is billed up to 4th October 2011 based on the actual meter readings and your current account balance is £17.59 in credit.

In order to avoid any underpayment on your account, we have revised your monthly Direct Debit payment to £72.00. This amount will begin being deducted from your bank from 6th November 2011.

We will continue to monitor your consumption every three months. In case your consumption falls, your Direct Debit will be recalculated in accordance.

When calculating your Direct Debit instalment value the following factors are taken into consideration:-
Current unit price
Service package discounts
Current account balance
Forecast energy usage over the next 12 months

The breakdown of your forecasted energy over the next 12 months is as follows:
Current Service Package: WWW CAPU DD DF

Electricity (Primary Units) 900 kWh x Unit price 19.763p £177.87
Electricity (Secondary Units) 2522 kWh x Unit price 10.59p £267.08
Standing Charge £0.00
Account Charges £0.00
Discounts -£21.06
VAT £21.19
Total £445.08


Gas 2680 kWh x Unit price 7.543p £202.15
Gas 5169 kWh x Unit price 3p £155.07
Standing Charge £0.00
Account Charges £0.00
Discounts -£10.02
VAT £17.36
Total £364.56


Total Electricity and Gas Charges £802.17
Balance on your account at reassessment £42.47
Total Charges £852.11

Dividing this total by 12 months shows your Direct Debit should be set at £71.00.

Your direct debit has been set to £72.00 per month to reflect the above calculations.

jgallcash

Any thoughts anybody?

t0rt0ise

If you want to argue that the DD is too high then you need to show that your usage is lower than their estimates. So tell them what you used last year and ask them recalculate.

DirectDebacle

Your annual review ought to be a year after you have joined. They have not calculated from this date so it will skew the figures you might have anticipated.

I am assuming this bill covers from your start date to 4th Oct. If so, re-calculate their prediction by deducting the amount of kWh shown for each fuel on your 4th Oct Bill from their future usage prediction.

Deduct the number of DD payments you have made up to 4th Oct from 12 and then divide the revised kWh predicted usage figures by that. You can then calculate a new figure which should reflect the DD payment required to balance your account by July 2012 and not October. See if that makes any difference.

I haven't checked whether their prediction of usage is in line with your own historical readings/usage. That is something else you need to check.

dshart

It appears that this is what most suppliers do, there is a similar thread regarding EON.

With 3 years of history you have a good argument for going forward to base the calculations on. They should be able to use these to calculate your payments correctly.

I also note in their letter they calculate that your DD should be set at £71 yet they set it at £72 based on that. Why is it always in their favour?