Southern Electric forgot to give Prompt Payment Discount

klint

I'm with Southern Electric for both gas and electricity and receive my bills online and always pay them promptly (as soon as I get the email from them) by Faster Payment using online banking. I have just received my gas and electricity bills and the 2.5% prompt payment discounts were missing. I phoned to complain and they accepted they had made a mistake and gave me the discount (which they say won't show on the bill until the next one in three months' time, but I can deduct the discount when I pay them today.)

So for me this has been resolved but I'm just writing to warn any other customers to check that any discounts they've been promised on their previous bills actually do show up in their current bill.

(The bill itself is confusing, they take the discount when calculating VAT but they don't actually give you the discount itself.)

I hope this helps someone.

dogshome

Klint, I'm worried that you are about to fall over a cliff.

The staff answering the phones on Customer Service Desks, are infamous for not doing what they agreed to do, and that goes for all the Utility Co's and not just SE

The situation now is that on the strength of a phone call with nothing in writing, you are going to 'short-pay' an issued bill - The computer will see this as debt on an account that requires quick payment on production of a bill, and is likely to go into wolverine collection mode with fierce letters and the involvement of a Debt Collection Agency - Once this Juggernaught has started it's difficult to stop.

DON'T pay the bill if you have not already done so - WRITE a letter to SE headed Complaint rejecting the first bill with the demand that they issue for a bill that correctly shows the discount
If you have paid the Bill, WRITE a.s.a.p confirming the arrangement you made on the phone

tryinahelp

dogshome wrote: »

Klint, I'm worried that you are about to fall over a cliff.

The staff answering the phones on Customer Service Desks, are infamous for not doing what they agreed to do, and that goes for all the Utility Co's and not just SE

The situation now is that on the strength of a phone call with nothing in writing, you are going to 'short-pay' an issued bill - The computer will see this as debt on an account that requires quick payment on production of a bill, and is likely to go into wolverine collection mode with fierce letters and the involvement of a Debt Collection Agency - Once this Juggernaught has started it's difficult to stop.

DON'T pay the bill if you have not already done so - WRITE a letter to SE headed Complaint rejecting the first bill with the demand that they issue for a bill that correctly shows the discount
If you have paid the Bill, WRITE a.s.a.p confirming the arrangement you made on the phone

Ridiculous advice in my opinion.

Klint has online billing, and therefore can go and check the current status of the account to ensure it is showing a zero balance since his telephone call and payment made.

Also, you appear to imply that collections procedures are going to go way overboard. Do you even realise how much money the prompt payment discount actually amounts to? For the average customer, it would barely be enough to be worth sending a single collection letter out, let alone going to a debt collection agency for.

If Klint has checked his online account and all is well, then the initial phone call was clearly adequate in reaching a resolution. I wouldn't be advising people to jump into writing complaint letters on an assumption that something won't be done after speaking to the company involved.

jalexa

tryinahelp wrote: »

Ridiculous advice in my opinion.

Do you even realise how much money the prompt payment discount actually amounts to? For the average customer, it would barely be enough to be worth sending a single collection letter out, let alone going to a debt collection agency for.

Is that "inside information"?

If so, and please correct me if the SSE online system has recently improved, but my fairly recent personal experience was that the SSE online system didn't show recent miscellaneous credits until they appeared in the next generated bill.

I think dogshome offered very wise advice.

tryinahelp

No, it's not inside information, it's common sense.

The discount is only around 2% and considering the average quarterly bill, it's not going to amount to an awful lot. Do you really think any customer of any company, in any industry, is going to be passed onto a debt collection agency for the sake of a couple of quid?

As for the online billing. My own account states the current balance on my account through my DD payments etc, aswel as the balance from the most recent bill. I don't see why that shouldn't also include any extra credits or debits that have been added to an account. If it doesn't, my mistake.

klint

Thanks everyone for alerting me to this possibility. I've just checked online and can see that a credit for the discount has been applied to each of my gas and electricity accounts.

The size of the discount was small (about £3 in total) but I complained out of principle. Especially since it might have prompted them to check other customers' accounts in case they had made the same error. I don't think it did though. The call centre operator didn't seem at all surprised at the error, and simply adjusted my account and went on to the next caller.

By the way, I think if I had underpaid, even by a penny, their computerised system would have sent me a reminder email and if I still didn't pay would start the debt recovery process automatically. If they didn't do that for all amounts, however small, it would soon become common knowledge to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous customers.