warm home discount scheme

tinacee1

Have you received any sort of letter yet informing that you have been unsuccessful ? I appreciate your worry - times are hard enough with escalating bills and now the spectre of the Bedroom Tax hovering over us. The whole thing has been handled very badly, but I think I have come to the end of the road with this now. Nowhere else to go with it. Hope you are luckier than me with your application, let me know how you are getting on with this.

tinacee1

Thomas_Hardy wrote: »

Do you receive the relevant qualifying benefits?

yes they told me that one piece of information was missing. I gave them the information on the morning of the 22nd that they asked for. Very frustrating.

rich_shot2003

Donmarie74 wrote: »

I have been told on two separate occasions by British Gas that my payment was issued on the 7th of March but I have YET to receive it, surely it doesn't take 3 week plus for myself to recieve the payment via letter.They only have 2 more days! :mad:

Yes that is what ive been told as well by them and like you still have not got it.

im not sure but i have a feeling they are waiting for the new financial year to start on April 8th then claim its royal mails fault that people have not got them.

im ringing them almost every day and they say the same thing over and over again that i will get it by March 31st.

so due to bank holidays i should get it by saturday then but do you know what i know i wont get it from them and will have to call them yet again.

British gas are shocking.

also they must know what date it was sent out but they say that cant.

cambermam

Simon7685 wrote: »

In answer to your question, there are a number of worrying factors. My bill is due, if the WHD is not applied before the bill is made up they will without doubt put my monthly payments up, which I cannot afford. When payments are increased it is not always that easy to get them reduced again.

It is all well and good knowing yourself you meet the criteria but that does not automatically mean you will get the payment. this site and others are littered with people who meet the criteria, only to be told that they are not getting the payment.

Being patient is all well and good but it does not stop the worry that goes with it, when you have the uncertainty of not knowing. The main point is that the energy companies are not playing fair by not telling people. As a result there are many people out there worrying about whether or not they can turn the heating on or up. A simple bit of communication from the energy companies could make all the difference. I appreciate they need to make checks but they could tell people that subject to the checks being completed they will be receiving the payment. It is not rocket science but is a level of customer service that should not be too much to expect.

I understand what you're saying as I'm in the same boat with a £130 debit on my account and another bill due any day now. I guess they probably don't have the budget in place to allow for communicating with us. Having said that, it's been a long wait and we're nearly at the end.

If it comes, I'll be extremely grateful. If it doesn't, well there will need to be some severe cutbacks to catch up but then I knew that when I switched suppliers in November not giving myself enough time to build a credit for winter

I hope everyone waiting gets theirs soon, it is promising to see someone has got theirs from Scottish Power. I'm submitting meter reads tonight to find out the dreaded spend for this month.

Simon7685

Tinacee1 that is absolutely disgusting, you can't give in and accept it, if you receive the qualifying benefits then they can't refuse to give you it surely? Have you thought about getting in touch with OFGEM, also the Energy Minister Ed Davey and the financial ombudsman.

These energy companies cannot be allowed to get away with what they are doing. The Govt needs to be aware of the shambles that is going on with this as well. After all somewhere down the line the energy companies get govt funding to supply this scheme, maybe not all of it but certainly some of it.

I would also consider going to the media with it but whatever you do please do not give up.

I have fired off a letter as an official complaint to Scottish Power this morning regarding their appaling customer service I have received and questioning their inability to answer simple questions like, "here is my application reference are you giving me the WHD?" It is ridiculous that they can't tell people whether or not they are receiving the credit or not.

They are causing people so much worry and it is not right!

Going back to your own claim, under what grounds have they said you aren't getting the WHD?

Thomas_Hardy

tinacee1 wrote: »

yes they told me that one piece of information was missing. I gave them the information on the morning of the 22nd that they asked for. Very frustrating.

OK, you need to find out why they have declined your application. When you have that information, you can work out how best to take it further.

Thomas_Hardy

Simon7685 wrote: »

Tinacee1 that is absolutely disgusting, you can't give in and accept it, if you receive the qualifying benefits then they can't refuse to give you it surely? Have you thought about getting in touch with OFGEM, also the Energy Minister Ed Davey and the financial ombudsman.

These energy companies cannot be allowed to get away with what they are doing. The Govt needs to be aware of the shambles that is going on with this as well. After all somewhere down the line the energy companies get govt funding to supply this scheme, maybe not all of it but certainly some of it.

I would also consider going to the media with it but whatever you do please do not give up.

I have fired off a letter as an official complaint to Scottish Power this morning regarding their appaling customer service I have received and questioning their inability to answer simple questions like, "here is my application reference are you giving me the WHD?" It is ridiculous that they can't tell people whether or not they are receiving the credit or not.

They are causing people so much worry and it is not right!

Going back to your own claim, under what grounds have they said you aren't getting the WHD?

It's no wonder they are ignoring you, you're being ridiculous. Calm down and be polite - "are you giving me the WHD?" is not polite. You'll get far more constructive replies if you do this.

Simon7685

cambermam wrote: »

I understand what you're saying as I'm in the same boat with a £130 debit on my account and another bill due any day now. I guess they probably don't have the budget in place to allow for communicating with us. Having said that, it's been a long wait and we're nearly at the end.

If it comes, I'll be extremely grateful. If it doesn't, well there will need to be some severe cutbacks to catch up but then I knew that when I switched suppliers in November not giving myself enough time to build a credit for winter

I hope everyone waiting gets theirs soon, it is promising to see someone has got theirs from Scottish Power. I'm submitting meter reads tonight to find out the dreaded spend for this month.

I know exactly what you mean about being extremely grateful, if it is received, although I think this is how the energy companies are expecting us to feel, as though they are doing us a favour.

The bottom line is people qualify for this payment due to being on very low incomes and/or in receipt of certain benefits and generally suffering fuel poverty. The fuel poverty side of things is fuelled completely by the energy companies increasing costs several times a year. Now I am all for businesses making a profit, even a handsome profit but every single one of these companies is making hundreds of billions of pounds in profit every year.

They operate on what is bordering if not a cartel. One puts up its prices and the rest follow suit generally within a few weeks, the end result being they all pretty much charge very similar prices overall. come the next round of price increases, another jumps first and the rest follow and so on.

They have taken all these obscene profits and failes to reinvest and modernise the industry, so now we all end up paying even more to cover the "necessary investment".

I have a concise record of my usage for the last 4 to 5 years. My consumption in that time has gone down by over 1500 units due to savings we have managed to make, like only having the immersion on every other day from spring until the winter for one. Over the same period my cost for less energy has gone from £500 a year to £1300 this year, an increase of over 75%.

I also changed supplier from BG to SP in October, not because I wanted to but because the ending of the BG social tariff had massive financial implications and I had to.

However just because you move supplier at that time of year does not mean you should have to suffer paying inflated monthly prices because of energy companies rip off calculations.

Once upon a time a monthly direct debit meant taking your average annual consumption and dividing it by 12. You pay that every month and by and large you come out even at the end of the year.

Now they want to reassess every 6 months to make sure we don't get into debt. They call it an obligation and being responsible. The truth is they want us to pay highly inflated prices over the winter so we don't owe them any money in March/April. Then they will reduce payments during the summer when we end up in credit anyway. This serves their purpose not the customers.

If you pay by monthly direct debit, you would expect to be owing them some money at this time of year, by the same token when October arrives you will be well in credit, which is also what you should expect. The energy companies do not want this to happen, they want us to be in credit at every billing point in the year, then will consider reducing your payments but only in the summer, when you will likely be in credit anyway. It is all a big con and if they just stick to even monthly payments it works out the same anyway over a full year but the customer knows exactly where they are and can budget properly. Messing about with payments does not help when you live on a budget. I have seen my payments fluctuate by over £40 from one month to the next, just to fit in with how they want it to work........ Or in english, I should never owe them any money but its ok for me to be hundreds of pounds in credit!

Simon7685

Thomas_Hardy wrote: »

It's no wonder they are ignoring you, you're being ridiculous. Calm down and be polite - "are you giving me the WHD?" is not polite. You'll get far more constructive replies if you do this.

That is not how I asked them in the letter, or how I would ask. I was trying to emphasize what I meant by a simple question. As a matter of fact my written correspondence is always constructed and polite.

However the fact they can never answer simple questions remains.

Perhaps you might like to explain exactly why I am being ridiculous???

Simon7685

Okay

I have received a response from Scottish Power. Despite what other people might think, I believe that primarily it does show that persistance and complaining does prompt results.

However as well as providing answers, it also poses a number of further questions and also contradicts itself somewhat. However the positive news for me is that I have qualified for the WHD and the amount was credited to my account on the 25th March. The contents of the email I have received are as follows;

Dear Mr XXXX

I am sorry to hear you have faced a problem with your ScottishPower account.

I can confirm that your account has been credited the £130 payment on 25th March 2013 and will show on the next statement.

Unfortunately we did not know which customers in the broader group would be entitled to receive the discount until now. There were a much larger number of applications this year compared to the previous year, possibly due to increased awareness that the warm home discount existed.

We are only obliged to inform customers by 31/03/13 whether they are entitled to receive the payment or not as stated in the terms and conditions when applications are made but If we could have informed you sooner we would have done so.

Applications for the next years discount will begin being accepted in the summer and as you qualified for the payment this year you can assume that you would recieve the payment again unless your circumstances have changed.

I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Kind regards

XXXX XXXX
E-Contact Centre
ScottishPower

I have blanked the names out obviously and changed the text colour so it stands out. Otherwise this is a copy of the reply I have received, cut and pasted to this thread.

Whilst I am relieved to find I am receiving the credit onto my account and grateful for it. It does not answer all the questions I raised in my letter and it poses further questions.

1. The amount was credited on 25/3, yet my account is unable to show this despite my account being managed wholly online as part of its terms and conditions. The account has no issues of displaying credits to my account in the form of payments on the day they are taken from my bank account.

If energy companies insist on your account being operated entirely as an online account, then it should be capable of displaying up to date information.

2. Scottish Power state, We are only obliged to inform customers by 31/03/13 whether they are entitled to receive the payment or not

Obviously I need to sonfirm this but as I understood it, the rules of the scheme are that customers have to receive the payment credited to their accounts by 31 March. Not just receive notification of the entitlement.

In January this year, I had to sort out my Mothers electric as they had estimated her annual usage to be way above what she has used in the last 5 years. They wanted to increase her payments to £43 a month, when in real terms she uses much less and had applied for the WHD. I was able with negotiation to get them to apply the WHD credit to her account then calculate her monthly payments based on her previous usage, the net result being her usage comes down to £27 a month. so to allow for a buffer we agreed on £30 a month for her continuing payments. She received her bill at the end of February and the WHD had already been applied. This therfore suggests that notifications and payments can and are applied by some before 31/3.

Other people have reported receiving notifications or credit to their accounts prior to 31 March as well. So as all operators are bound by the T&C of the scheme, then all must obide by them, in which case nobody should have been told or received notification prior to 31 March, if what SP are claiming is correct.

They claim they would have told me sooner, if they could. This is rubbish as they have had the opportunities to tell me sooner for one thing. I asked the question on the 25th March (the day they credited my account) yet they ignored my request (which incidentally was asked in a polite professional manner). They must know prior to the account being credited that it is going to be, so they can tell you, they just choose not to!

Perhaps that is picky but if they wish to spout T&C's it cuts both ways when it comes to obiding by them.

3. They claim they did not know who from the broader group would qualify for the payment until now. If this is correct then it suggests that they start their checking process far too late in the day for comfort and as thy all have a WHD team, why can they not perform the checks when the application is received? That way they could remove all uncertainty by telling the claimant that they have qualified and unless there circumstances change they will be receiving the WHD payment. In the days of electronic communications this should not be an issue to them, neither does it need to be a great cost. Although given the obscene profits they make any additional cost would be negligable to them anyway. It should be about providing the right service.

I firmly believe that this whole process is geared around them wanting to issue bills prior to crediting peoples accounts therby allowing them to reassess peoples payments at a higher level than is necessary.

I believe this is further substantiated by SP sending out meter readers 3 weeks ahead of when the bill is due and 2 weeks before asking me to supply the readings. Again part of my account conditions are that I supply online readings when asked for by them. If I fail to do this I will receive an estimated bill and the only way to alter that is for me to submit new readings and ask for a correction to be made. My online account clearly displays that my bill is due on 07 April, therefore why would they be trying to get meter readings as early as 15 March? Unless they want to create an early bill inflate the payments because I will owe them money and after doing that apply the WHD which results in me being back in credit but payments stay the same as they will not be due to be reassessed for a further 6 months.

If I owed them £130 at the time of the bill, they would add that amount to the estimated annual cost and divide by 12 to reach the new payment. I suspect most people just accept this situation and any that choose to ring up will receive a futher stock answer of, "well I can see you are in credit but you are now building a credit towards next winters bill so that is why you payments are slightly higher". Most people either just accept it, or do not really understand how the system works. This scenario would mean that going into next winter the likelihood would be that you would have a large enough credit to not owe them anything at the end of the winter period. Which is how they want peoples accounts to operate. There philosophy is it is entirely acceptable for them to hold hundreds of pounds of your money but they do not want you owing them money at any point of the year.

The one positive is that I have received the payment, even if it doesn't show on my online managed account.

The way the WHD scheme is managed and implemented is another thing entirely. All people want is for a fair system that operates on a level playing field. Not one that the energy companies work to suit their own ends, which is what I believe is going on.

I will be following up their correspondence and asking the difficult questions, as unless we keep at them nothing will ever change. Apart from prices continuing to go up, which I predict will be happening within the next 6 weeks. They will blame their increased costs (yes the wholesale price has risen) because of the recent cold weather and then say they have protected customers by holding off the price increase until May when the weather is better. Their way of saying they understand and are helping their customers stretched budgets. However the wholesale price will have then dropped back down and as usual the prices they charge will go up. We will be the ones that end up paying in the long term for the short term wholesale increase.