Scottish Power have upped my DD

PhylPho

Excellent advice, consumerist. We're quitting Scottish Power on principle though don't have especially high hopes of our new Npower fix to February 2013. But who knows? We may be pleasantly surprised. If, however, Npower starts playing the same game as Scottish Power so blatantly is -- storing up surpluses on accounts, then varying Direct Debit payment schedule to swingeing and unnecessary degree -- we'll follow your route.

I've no doubt Scottish Power will contact us in due course about why we're switching, and may even seek to play up whatever awards it has for its consumer oriented approach (huh?)

Yeah. Right. I had to spend some time last week, sorting out just what Scottish Power is charging me now, because the unit tariff it sent through was devoid of VAT at 5%. It could quite easily -- were it truly consumer focused -- have quoted the VAT-inclusive price, seeing as it knows perfectly well that the overwhelming majority of its customers are domestic households not registered for VAT.

That it didn't do so is yet further evidence of a corporate culture that we've decided we wish to have nothing further to do with. As the Very Reverend Tony Blair once said, it's all about obfuscation, obfuscation, obfuscation. :mad:

ricky9

If you’re in credit

If you’re in credit by more than 3 months’ worth of payments by the time your annual review comes round, we’ll automatically refund the credit amount to you. If you have less than 3 months’ worth of payments, we’ll factor this into your estimated payments for the coming year.
Up or down, whenever your payments need to change and for whatever reason, we’ll let you know in advance.
What’s more, if your account has a credit balance at the time of your next annual review, we’ll actually give you money back. ScottishPower will pay you £1 for every full multiple of £33 above a minimum credit value of £100. That’s £1 if your credit balance is £133, £2 if it’s £166 and so on, right up to the maximum payout of £12 for a credit balance of £496. We’re the only energy company to currently offer this kind of reward.
We hope that’s been of use. If you have any more questions, please consult our virtual assistant ‘Katie’. She’s here to help

Consumerist

ricky9 wrote: »

We’re the only energy company to currently offer this kind of reward.

No[t] quite. In fact Ovo Energy pays 3% pa on the credit balance at the end of the previous month.

PhylPho

Thanks for the Ovo info, consumerist. I'm pming you separately about that.

avantra

ricky9 wrote: »

If you’re in credit

If you’re in credit by more than 3 months’ worth of payments by the time your annual review comes round, we’ll automatically refund the credit amount to you. If you have less than 3 months’ worth of payments, we’ll factor this into your estimated payments for the coming year.
Up or down, whenever your payments need to change and for whatever reason, we’ll let you know in advance.
What’s more, if your account has a credit balance at the time of your next annual review, we’ll actually give you money back. ScottishPower will pay you £1 for every full multiple of £33 above a minimum credit value of £100. That’s £1 if your credit balance is £133, £2 if it’s £166 and so on, right up to the maximum payout of £12 for a credit balance of £496. We’re the only energy company to currently offer this kind of reward.
We hope that’s been of use. If you have any more questions, please consult our virtual assistant ‘Katie’. She’s here to help

SSE do it as well, when asked to refund the excessive credit they do so swiftly every year. The fact is they (and all the other) don't have the technology (yet) to get them out of the estimated bill and DD conundrum.

They all should run a direct reading so you pay for what you use, but this is still few years away (smart meters).

Consumerist

avantra wrote: »

SSE do it as well, . . .

[STRIKE]Scottish Power is part of SSE so you're talking about the same parent company.[/STRIKE]

Edit
As has been pointed out below (more than once), this is not so. Apologies avantra for the error.

icewarrior_2

Consumerist wrote: »

Scottish Power is part of SSE so you're talking about the same parent company.

since when?????

Scottishpower are part of Iberdrola. Scottish Hydro are part of SSE

property.advert

People who cannot relate their payments to utility companies to their energy consumption figures should really think about doing something about it.

It is not exactly rocket science is it ?

PhylPho

property.advert wrote: »

People who cannot relate their payments to utility companies to their energy consumption figures should really think about doing something about it.

Many already are.

Consumerist

property.advert wrote: »

It is not exactly rocket science is it ?

I agree it's not rocket science for some of us but, in my experience, people don't keep their energy bills for long enough to establish their energy consumption over a year.

It doesn't help, either, that gas consumption is measured in two types of units (100s of cu.ft. in some cases or cu.m. in others) and then paid for in units of kWh.