Scottish Power problem, please help!

dekaspace

I have been in a lat with credit meter 1 month and was shocked to see, even though Im using FAR less electric to see my bill skyrocket from about £23 to £50! when in the 5 years of me paying electic bills through card emters in 3 or 4 different properties, it has been between £2-£7 a week and it only went as high as £7 in winter months as I had heating!

Theres something wrong somewhere, as I say im using what I believe to be far LESS than I was using before, at my last flat I spent £4 a week in summer and £7 a week winter, as I had gas CH and gas fire on in living room 3-4 days a week for 3-4 hours a time! and flat Before that I spent around £3 a week as heating was provided by landlord.

At my new flat I knew heating was expensive for electirc, so I have never once used it, apart from a fan heater on for 5 minute bursts 1 day when it was snowing. and in total was on for around 30 minutes.

apart from that im not using storage heaters.

My shower is electric now, and I do like long showers, of up to 20 minutes a time daily(which since I have had bill I havent showed once so I stink)

How can just using a shower a day up my bill by almost £30 when now im using less electirc overall, as I no longer watch tv.

Before my PC was in same room as TV so I had both on at same time, up to 10 hours a day, now its either or, and since I had broadband at new place I have only watched tv for about 10 minutes in total. and again at my old property I never went over £4 a week using both! and cooking each day!

Katyag

We had a similar problem with Scottish power, we used to be in a 2 bed flat with all electric, inc storage heaters, electric heated water and a prepayment meter. We used approx £5-£15 a week dependent on season.

We then moved to a 2 bed masionette, in a flat style building but an upstairs and downstairs house style with gas heating and water and a normal meter and our bills were averaging twice what they used to be even tho we were using a lot less electricity.

Scottish power agreed our bills should be less compared to the house we moved from 2-3 months previously on the above issues (this was early 2004 before the huge price hikes) but they couldnt see why they werent. We put it down to their prices and moved sharpish to the people we had our gas from, Scottish Hydro Electric.

Since then the bills have been a lot better, not cheap but just better. Our gas bills are very reasonable and i always call up with an accurate reading when they send in an estimate bill regardless of them under or over estimating us so i know we are paying for what we are using so wont be whacked with a large catch up bill.

So my advice is move suppliers, we found Scottish Power to be awful!!! Customer service was very very poor!!

tripled

Check your consumption instead of the £'s and you will soon see if you are using more or less. Don't forget over the last 5 years energy prices have pretty much doubled.

dekaspace

Just found out on bill, that I have a £8 a month standing charge, then about £3 VAT on bill so thats where £11 came from, still about £38 a month though, double my old flat.

I wonder if it was a bad meter reading from landlord, as I signed a form to say what the meter reading was when I moved in, and landlord couldnt read it that well and had to turn lights on, I wonder if she read it wrong.

As I did a quick meter reading myself, the bill said I used 357 Kwh in 4 weeks, but the meter reading taken 2 weeks ago to the day, and the meter reading now, the difference is only 92 Kwh, which is almost half(well if you double that you get 184 and double again 368 which is barely higher than my old one)

So how could my electric half in last 2 weeks, when im using MORE the last 2 weeks, as I had a friend stay over, so I was in bedroom on my PC with 20" monitor and he was in living room watching TV and often with laptop on for about 12 hours a day, and he used a fan heater a few times.

Strange.