Transferring to Scottish Power my experience

mallad

Having been with Eon for years I came to the end of my latest plan with them last November. Eon wanted to increase my dd from £130 (I was in credit) to £162 for 2012 which was not unexpected but I wondered if I could do better.
Quoting my exact usage figures for the previous year Scottish Power were best at £156 per month so I transferred.
They have supplied me for three months now and have just reviewed my account days before my third dd payment. Based on my TWO months dd payments and THREE months winter usage they have increased my monthly dd to £198!
They state that my payments to date don't cover my current usage! Well of course they don't.
I am now paying considerably more than I budgeted for at the moment - at least until they review it again in 90 days.

dogshome

Don't just roll over, Complain

You know what your annual consumption is from all those years with Eon, so work out what your annual cost will be on your SP tariff and divide by 12 to see what your D/Debit should be to clear it

Armed with these figures WRITE to SP heading the letter Complaint on two grounds
1 That they have reviewed your D/D payment after only 3 Winter months, when as it is your first year with them the proper review should be the anniversary of you joining them
2 That notwithstanding a correct review date, their demand is based on the entirely wrong premise of 3 Winter months use against 2 months D/Debit payments, when the 3rd D/D made a few days later would have entirely altered the Debit balance

keiran

I had the same experience with Scottish Power.

I had supplied them with my annual usage ( including the last 2 very cold winters), and I understand they also had confirmation from my previous supplier, or the "national meter reading service", etc.

They increased my d/d from £45 to £78 (64%) after the first meter reading, which in any case showed a credit balance on the resulting bill.
They had "justified" this by providing an annual usage forecast, which was a work of fiction. I did not understand why they had to estimate in this way, when they had REAL figures. Presumably they believe all their customers to be liars and thieves. (of course, increasing the d/d amount to unjustified levels is not thieving from customers)

I was able to convince them of the error of their ways, and they reduced the d/d and "compensated" me with a derisory £20.

I am considering a complaint to the ombudsman, but really am ambivalent:-
1) All "regulators, ombudsmen", etc are funded by the companies they are supposed to regulate, and have extremely cosy relationships with them
2) We are asked to "prove" how our suggested compensation figure was arrived at, and they don't pay for time, etc
3) I think power companies have been asked not to let customers' accounts fall into arrears which they may subsequently struggle to pay. - This has clearly been interpreted by the companies as a licence to set d/d at high levels


These things don't bother me personally much (!) I can easily afford any rip off charges these thieves demand to take, and know it will all "come out in the wash" eventually. I have also greatly benefited from substantial rewards from holding shares in such companies, with gains in share price and high dividend yields.

My issue is that these practices must be widely employed ( by Scottish Power and other companies), and usually directed at customers who can't afford the undue charges, perhaps can't work out their bills, and may be unable to challenge the companies.

mallad

Hi dogshome, thanks for the reply and good advice.
Having gone through the whole complaint/ofgem/ombudsman process a few years back when I received a bill for thousands (eventually winning substantial compensation) rest assured that I know the process well and will certainly not be taking this lying down.

Scottish_Power

Hi mallad,

If you e-mail me with your details I can sort this for you. Mt e-mail address is [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL]

Kind regards

Graeme @ ScottishPower

mallad

Thank you for reading my post and I look forward to hearing from you