Owe £458 final bill - Scottish Power

lizziemac_3

Moved house. Got final bill from Scottish Power. I read electricity meter reading on 28 May - 53715. When I read it before I moved on 10 July it was 57940. How come in 5 weeks there is such a hike and I'm left with a bill of £458.40?

Anyone else had similar experiences?

Should I pay it or question it further? Given its my own meter readings, cannot see I have a case for it at all. There is only me and my husband and we lived in a 2 bedroom cottage!

jalexa

lizziemac wrote: »

How come in 5 weeks there is such a hike

The most likely explanation is a misread of one or other of the readings, most likely the closing read. Did your meter have round dials (notoriously difficult to read because adjacent dials turn in opposite directions)? What was the reading previous to 28 May?

CharlieBilly

Either that or someone is using your electric running a cannabis farm

4225kWh in 5 weeks is 845kWh per week or 120kWh a day when most folks this time of year would use around 10-20kWh tops and thats high is 20

Something doesn't add on here thats not normal domestic usage

jalexa

lizziemac wrote: »

Should I ... question it further?

Yes, the reading is such a massive advance that it should not have been accepted by Scottish Power without validation.

Set a trap for Scottish Power by asking if the reading has been "validated" and if not why not. If you are not 100% satisfied with the answer to that question raises a formal complaint.

DaveF327

Did somebody leave the immersion on for 6 weeks?

jalexa

DaveF327 wrote: »

Did somebody leave the immersion on for 6 weeks?

Do the maths. The consumption represent nearly a 5kW standing load, way above the losses of an immersion system.

Terrylw1

jalexa wrote: »

Yes, the reading is such a massive advance that it should not have been accepted by Scottish Power without validation.

Set a trap for Scottish Power by asking if the reading has been "validated" and if not why not. If you are not 100% satisfied with the answer to that question raises a formal complaint.

If the supplier has billed it, they regard it as validated.

However, this is an interesting point in that the supplier sends your customer reads to their Data Collector for validation & submission into settlement to affect the bill between the distributor & supplier. So, if the Data Collector fails your reading, most likely as "twice expected consumption" which is a very common one, has the supplier reworked that rejected reading or just ignored it?

I'm wondering if its the 3 that became a 7. Should the closing reading reflected a 7 or a 3? Or should the previous reading have been a 7 which would have meant less of a spike in the shorter closing bill? If the previous reading should have been a 7, does that cause a larger than expected bill up to then?

jalexa

Terrylw1 wrote: »

If the supplier has billed it, they regard it as validated.

I defer to you greater knowledge of the process however it is absurd behaviour by Scottish Power that their own systems didn't reject such a massive advance.

When I say "set a trap" what I really mean is to ask an open question and then exploit the answer. It would be a great pity if the OP was discouraged from the challenge by your "dismissal" of the term "validated" with no firm formal advice about how to proceed.

"If the supplier has billed it, they regard it as validated" is a preposterous situation. Who the heck is "they"? I don't think there was a "they" in it, just a p*ss poor system.

BTW, I think your "3/7" theory is the most likely theory to be investigated first. Maybe we will get some follow-up from the OP. Maybe not.

Terrylw1

jalexa wrote: »

I defer to you greater knowledge of the process however it is absurd behaviour by Scottish Power that their own systems didn't reject such a massive advance.

When I say "set a trap" what I really mean is to ask an open question and then exploit the answer. It would be a great pity if the OP was discouraged from the challenge by your "dismissal" of the term "validated" with no firm formal advice about how to proceed.

"If the supplier has billed it, they regard it as validated[/I]" is a preposterous situation. Who the heck is "they"? I don't think there was a "they" in it, just a p*ss poor system.

BTW, I think your "3/7" theory is the most likely theory to be investigated first.

It could be the system but I would have thought it would have caused a billing rejection to be investigated manually. In doing this it should entail validation against previous consumption and customer contact if it can't be determined as valid or not.

I suspect poor manual work since its far too high and I wonder if the person working it just thought "well the customer gave it, they will always call if there is an issue". You do come across managers who openly state its for the customer to complain rather than us spending time & money doing something. I hate this attitude and I openly challenge such people.

Unfortunately, that's how it is with a supplier. The expectation is on their system processes being tight and their processes/quality systems being effective.

I just mean that if it was classed as a failure, it wouldn't have been used and I didn't post anything further as I would only be repeating your advice anyway aside from asking them if their agent failed it and what they did to re-validate it.