Scottish Power have upped my DD

Pressleyno1

Scottish power have upped my direct debit from £80pm to / £121 pm.

They said its so I don't fall into debt.

Whazat all about?!

Scottish_Power

Hi Pressleyno1,

If you e-mail me with your details to [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] I will check the DD increase to ensure it is accurate and explain the reasons for it.

Kind regards

Graeme @ ScottishPower

thecoffeehouse204

They've just done the same to me Pressley - I can understand that they work out your estimated costs over 12 months then divide it to get your monthly payment - which is probably why your payment needs to be increased due to the recent price hikes. But for us they don't seem to have taken into account that we are already in credit by £320+ and they still want to put our payments up from £99 to £120. Again I don't mind them holding the credit to see us through winter without falling into debt but increasing our payments is taking the mickey a bit.

Needless to say I'm shopping round for a new supplier for when our current deal is up in December.

Hope you manage to get to the bottom of it.

PhylPho

Am I banking with Scottish Power nowadays or the financial institution I've had for the past 40 years???

We began with Scottish Power in October 2010 and for the first two months thought everything was OK. Then, when I took the trouble to check just what we were being charged per unit of gas / unit of electricity, discovered it resembled nothing remotely like that which we'd signed up for.

Turned out that "for reasons that aren't clear", I was told, my dual fuel Direct Debit account had been changed "by the computer" to the "commercial rate", whatever the heck that is. Profound apologies. Should never have happened.

So. . . I'm restored to the tariff SP contracted with me and all's well. SP is, I know, monitoring my household consumption and I also know, it can vary my Direct Debit accordingn to usage. I trust it to be scrupulously fair about this -- just like millions of other customers of other utility providers throughout the UK trust their suppliers, too.

Here in the far North, we're hit with an especially bad winter, snow on the ground from late November 2010 through to the end of February. During that period, SP's Direct Debit charge stays at £126 a month. In February this year, it rises to £141 a month. I figure, we've been heavy users during winter, this is fair enough. The £141 a month Direct Debit level stays in place through to August -- that's six months, enough to take us from winter into summer.

In August, it drops to £109. In September, it's still £109. That's better, then.

I go online, check the status of the account, and discover why it's better: the account, as of September 2011, is £427.79p in credit.

Huh? But no. That's correct. Scottish Power has £427.79p of my money which it hasn't actually earned.

And if that isn't enough -- and clearly, it isn't enough for Scottish Power -- less than three weeks later it increases my Direct Debit by over 32%, up from £109 to £144.

This really is a nonsense.

If Scottish Power is that worried about bad debt and rogue customers then it should get out of the business altogether. I don't mind a utility company having a month's money in the bank in advance -- though there's no legal reason why it should -- but. . .

Three months' money in advance based on the maximum amount paid per month this year????

On top of which it now imposes a 32% monthly INCREASE????

I can't be alone in being fed up to the proverbial back teeth with UK utility companies.

We've tried most of 'em and they're universally distinguished by varying levels of incompetence and various degrees of venality. They are, especially, united in a scathing contempt for existing customers: we quit on EDF because it promised all kinds of things in wonderfully soothing letters which actually turned out to be considerably less wonderful than if we'd been a new customer -- but then offered us the same deal when it learned we were switching to Scottish Power.

And now, in addition to trousering a large amount of money and seeking even more, Scottish Power has done exactly the same thing to us as EDF tried to do: when our Online 11 Tariff expired at the end of last month, an emollient communication a la EDF style emerged from Scottish Power, assuring us it had our best interests at heart -- as in, you'll get 2% off our standard rate over the next 12 months because you pay by Direct Debit.

Oh gosh. How considerate you are, Scottish Power. Such a shame that that ol' institutionalised amnesia has set in so that you've completely forgotten to mention you have far better deals on offer than that. . (And will no doubt reveal them to us, once we're one foot out of the door.).

And we are now one foot out of the door. We're switching suppliers yet again because we don't like being treated as if we're idiots by companies that give every indication of thinking they're very clever and very skilled and oh-so specialised it's a privilege for any consumer to even have their service.

Truth is, there's nothing particularly complex or clever about supplying gas and electricity -- and especially not if you're merely re-selling the stuff, like an ordinary retailer getting goods from an ordinary wholesaler. What is complex and clever is the way gas and electricity suppliers construct their tariffs, promote their offers, confuse their customers and now, it seems, bank God knows what amounts of money which they have not earned.

On the basis of our experience -- where the amount of unearned funds in Scottish Power's bank is equal to three months of the highest Direct Debit we've ever paid -- I'm now thinking of asking my Member of Parliament to inquire into how the industry as a whole is operating in terms of advance fee charging via the variable Direct Debit system.

Just how much unearned income are utility companies sitting on: £hundreds of £thousands? £millions?

Nice little earner -- and definitely good for all those board room bonuses, chaps!! :mad:

Consumerist

PhylPho wrote: »

Just how much unearned income are utility companies sitting on: £hundreds of £thousands? £millions?

It is disappointing that we now have to regard the energy suppliers with the same contempt that we regard our banks.

With banks, if the regulator stops them doing one thing then their Dirty-tricks departments will dream up another way to treat us with contempt. The energy suppliers, like the banks, have to be consulted before any restrictions can be imposed on them but the energy suppliers need not consult anyone so they will always be one jump ahead; they know this and just laugh at the regulator while they abuse their customers.

It seems to me that if suppliers don't hold onto huge credit balances from their customers then they will put up prices to compensate their shareholders.

I am currently thinking of switching to SP and I just know they will be planning to generate a huge credit balance from me but I anticipate this already and look forward to getting my savings back when I depart their company next year at the expiry of contract.

PhylPho

Consumerist wrote: »

It is disappointing that we now have to regard the energy suppliers with the same contempt that we regard our banks.

Disappointing, certainly. But it's also corrosive because corporate cynicism fuels a wider cynicism in Society as a whole.

We try to teach our kids a moral code. But they're growing up in a Society where a bank will gamble without regard to consequence or systematically defraud via PPI or, earlier, the mis-selling of endowment insurance tied to mortgages. Or an energy company will deliberately create an opaque tariff structure and pride itself on being clever enough to screw any existing customer naive enough to expect it to behave ethically.

We're not a religious family by any means, but we never saw much wrong with that Biblical line about 'do unto others as you would want them to do unto you'.

For the banks, the energy companies, and countless other corporate entities operating in the UK today, that principle is now 'do unto others as much as you can before they realise they're being screwed'.

Standards in public life aren't merely expected of individuals like MPs (though that lot have also shown themselves as cynical and manipulative as the companies on whose boards they take easy-money directorships.) Standards in public life ought to be expected of companies and corporations as well where the goods and services they sell are essential to life.

Toothless regulatory watchdogs bear much of the blame for allowing the kind of malevolent culture exemplified by gas and electricity suppliers to flourish and to corrode.

daveyjp

Phylpho - who is holding a gun to your head to pay by DD? There are other ways of paying.

PhylPho

daveyjp wrote: »

Phylpho - who is holding a gun to your head to pay by DD? There are other ways of paying.

Nobody is, davey. We prefer the convenience of DD and have no problem with utility companies' variable DD providing the system is perated reasonably and fairly.

Scottish Power's variation in our DD (a 32% increase) when it already holds a surplus on our account equivalent to three months' payments at the highest rate levied during 2011 strikes is neither fair nor reasonable.

Consumerist

PhylPho wrote: »

. . . For the banks, the energy companies, and countless other corporate entities operating in the UK today, that principle is now 'do unto others as much as you can before they realise they're being screwed'. . .

We're not referred to as "Rip-off Britain" for nothing.

The sad truth, I think, is that too many of us are financially illiterate and, for that reason, we're easy meat for the financially savvy to take advantage.

Splitrim

We are in a similair position.

At the beginning of the year, they upped my direct debit from 115 to 140, not a big increase you might think, but as my bills for both have been reducing year on year for the last 4 years a bit much I thought.
Taking into account price increases, the fact that a hairstraighteningXBOXplayingTVwatching teenage hermit who had left for Uni would probably cancel most of that out, I figured that overall our monetary bill for the year would probably be the same.
Having spoken to them a number of times, we could not agree on a figure so I cancelled the direct debit, and have paid manually from then on.
Over the year I have paid what I think was reasonable (it varied depending on how the bills looked) and only for 1 month was my account in debit(real debit not their inflated assumption of it) As i got it into credit I missed a payment in Aug as we could not afford it, but even when the Sept bill had been applied I was still in credit and paid similair amounts in Oct and Nov.

Imagine my surprise then when they sent a letter last week staing that I'd been removed from the monthly plan saying I was £365 overdue! In addition they sent a estimated bill (a month early as I had a bill in Sept) for £170. I took my own readings, they had over estimated the Gas usage by 75%!!!.
It should have been in the region of £125. I'm waiting for their new bill which I will pay, in the meantime I'm looking for a new supplier.

Part of the reason why I actted theway I did this year this was that 4 years ago I had overpaid by almost £500 at the end of the billing year. (50% more than the actual bill)

Like most people money is tight so to have to pay £40 extra per month without realising (and it being unnecessary) meant that sometimes something else suffered. With some work I was able to establish that we had paid £125(5x25) in bank charges when DD's were returned as we were a bit short on days they were requested(always less than that £40 we had over paid to SP) They made no comment on that.

The crux of the matter is that many peoples energy usage is going down, for all sorts of reasons but down none the less. The energy companies see this and are looking for scams to make extra for a diminishing supply, first hike the prices, then monthly payments, to make interest on money they have in their account instead of ours. Scottish Power even changed the start point of our "year" to increase the payments when we are using very little energy.

OFGEN should put a stop to this type of sharp practise, it's almost as bad as the doorstep miss selling.

Consumerist

Splitrim wrote: »

The crux of the matter is that many peoples energy usage is going down, for all sorts of reasons but down none the less. . . OFGEN should put a stop to this type of sharp practise, it's almost as bad as the doorstep miss selling.

I agree that energy savings made by consumers is part of the reason that prices are increasing, coupled with green energy taxes to pay for wind farms and the like.

Regarding excessive DDs, my approach has always been to challenge any unjustifiable increases and to start the formal complaints procedure if informal agreement couldn't be reached. As part of the complaint I set out my case for a reasonable monthly payment then ask for written justification of payments they have demanded. The implied threat of a reference to the Energy Ombudsman seems to have worked well for me in the past.

There would be a greater likelihood of action by Ofgem if consumers were to refer the type the difficulties you have had to Consumer Direct where it is registered and may form the basis of statistics in support of a reference to Ofgem by them.

If you're currently looking for another supplier and want to avoid the sharp practices of the "Big Six", have you considered Ovo?