Add your feedback on energy supplier Scottish Power

System

sinks wrote: »

Scottish Power ....... Have told me twice I will be charged exit fees if I leave my March 2015 online tariff early.
I have read on MSE website there are no charges if you leave in the last 49 days! I am trying to find out where the rule is written so I can show it to SP any ideas anyone?
I question my self first! Have I read my info wrong?
Then begin to wonder Does a utility company really not know the rules!

You DO NOT have to speak to Scottish Power about your switch. These are the OFGEM rules:

Fixed term contracts

Suppliers will be banned from increasing prices, or making other changes to fixed term contracts which are to the disadvantage of a customer. The only exceptions to this are “tracker” tariffs that follow an independent index over which the supplier has no control, or structured price increases set out in advance which are fully in line with consumer protection law. This new rule applies to any contracts entered into on or after July 15 2013.

Suppliers will be required to notify customers that their current fixed-term is coming to an end between 42 and 49 days before the contract ends.

Between this notification period and the end of the fixed term contract, suppliers will be banned from charging a termination fee should the customer decide to switch.

Suppliers will be banned from automatically rolling a customer over onto a further fixed term contract.

Instead suppliers will be required to default customers to an evergreen contract if the customer takes no switching action before the end of their fixed-term contract (this default contract must be the cheapest evergreen tariff with the supplier from 31st March 2014).

csense1

Copy of my post in Energy Suppier forum:
Thanks to MSE I switched to OVO dual fuel in December. Thank goodness.
Scottish Power customer service is appalling. Two months after switching completed and all accounts finalised I received notification of an estimated bill of £400 for december to February.
OVO were fantastic.They confirmed all procedures correctly completed and even sent me a screenshot of the National database entry of my electricity meter.
Scottish Power confirmed in reply to my email that they were in error and would ensure account formally and correctly closed. Two weeks later and nearly £400 removed by direct debit from my account! No reply to emails from Scottish Power yet (no surprise) but First Direct customer service excellent(as usual) have refunded money as within a day of removal.
Moral: Avoid Scottish Power and take note of Customer Service reports. OVO and First Direct exemplary

tangoev

We purchased a Nissan Leaf electric car and had a dedicated change point installed and have the car set to charge every night and the lower rate tariff. Our supplier for the last two years has been OVO, who have been great but don't have a good night rate so switched to Scottish power.

The transition has been appalling. With OVO we had a Smart Meter. You would expect that a Smart Meter would help the transition. But no. Firstly Scottish Power do not have any Smart Meters and seem incapable of understanding what they are. Secondly they have a website that is never on-line and you have to call for every question.

Scottish want the reading at the switch over date. - Have you ever tried to read a Smart Meter? It's impossible as they are designed to send usage to a computer and they not display any sensible information.

After 2 months Scottish Power have still not started the service, we are now paying OVO and Scottish Power. To resolve I had to call OVO and ask them the readings from December and tell these to Scottish Power. They then started the clock on these reading.

All in all it had been a slow, annoying and confusing process compounded by hearing different excuses from sundry Scottish Power people.

Wish we had stayed with OVO, at least you can speak sense with them and had a great website.

System

As I understand it, the agreed standard for smart meters has yet to be agreed!! Early adopters of smart meters will in most cases find that their meter has lost its smart features after a switch of energy supplier.

John_of_Denbigh

John_of_Denbigh wrote: »

Dateline 30th January 2015.

Yesterday we received a letter from Scottish Power. :rotfl:When I finally picked myself up off the floor I read it again through tears of laughter/frustration. It begins "We're here to make sure your move goes smoothly":rotfl:

Permit me a modicum of scepticism here. SP have signally failed to communicate with us and when I did speak to them they told me that ours was a missing account. It wasn't missing - it never existed in the first place!

Having read the letter I went to the account page they set up for us some time ago to find it is now working.:eek: Saying that there is nothing useful on it except the tariff we were on, a direct debit amount for electricity and a billing date of 9 January 2016. My wife went to our bank account and discovered a direct debit for SP which she cancelled immediately (there's no way they are having access to our bank account!).

We have had a final gas bill from EDF relating to our previous supply from them meaning that there is an agreed meter reading for gas. I rang EDF today and discovered that there is an agreed reading for electricity as well and they will be providing a final bill for the previous supply from them in the next few days. This I believe. Whilst I was on the phone to them I asked for these readings and was given the figures so I now have all the ammunition I need ready for SP in any attempts they make to collect money for the gas and electricity we had from them. I shall not be holding my breath.

You really couldn't make it up!

John of Denbigh.

28/2/15 - Another month goes by and we are no further forward. EDF did promise that we would have a final electricity bill for the previous contract the last time I spoke to them however this has not materialised, probably because SP are still not able to string a sentence together to resolve the problem. Still, we haven't paid for the gas and electricity they supplied over Christmas and New Year. If they don't bill us before the beginning of 2017 we won't be paying at all.

Mikey17

ljonski wrote: »

https://www.trustpilot.co.uk/review/www.scottishpower.com

OMG :shocked:
I have just agreed to switch to Scottish Power from Extraenergy. The words frying pan and fire are are ringing in my ears. Are all these companies the same. I will save £200+ by switching, which was the main motive. However I could have stayed with EE using a different tariff and saved almost the same. The bad feedback on EE made me change supplier.
Wish I had read this thread first. I know I can still back out, but I get the feeling with both companies having such bad customer service , that could end in disaster

olimortimer

Scottish Power used to be great when I was at my previous address - I could submit meter readings as often as I wanted via their website, which would instantly raise a new bill and update my credit / debit against my account. This allowed me to alter my DD to ensure the credit / debit was at a minimum, and also see how energy saving tricks and tips would alter my consumption / bill.

However, 6 months ago I moved house and switched my SP account to my new address, but since then I have been unable to do any of the above - submitting meter readings online no longer works (even though it says "Thank you..."), so I have to resort to either ringing them up or Tweeting them my readings, and then my account would be updated whenever they got round to applying them.

They keep saying the issue would be sorted, but there's been no change in the last 6 months, so I'm leaving for E.ON, who's website actually works...

Fletch7

olimortimer wrote: »

Scottish Power used to be great when I was at my previous address - I could submit meter readings as often as I wanted via their website, which would instantly raise a new bill and update my credit / debit against my account. This allowed me to alter my DD to ensure the credit / debit was at a minimum, and also see how energy saving tricks and tips would alter my consumption / bill.

However, 6 months ago I moved house and switched my SP account to my new address, but since then I have been unable to do any of the above - submitting meter readings online no longer works (even though it says "Thank you..."), so I have to resort to either ringing them up or Tweeting them my readings, and then my account would be updated whenever they got round to applying them.

They keep saying the issue would be sorted, but there's been no change in the last 6 months, so I'm leaving for E.ON, who's website actually works...

Ditto. My old account was closed down and I was refunded the credit in less than a week. I couldn't quite believe it! However they just lulled me into a false sense of security as everything then went wrong.

They opened a new account at my new address for gas but somehow resurrected my closed dual fuel account at my old house for my new electric account (despite being dual fuel at my new address) this merging of closed and open accounts caused a total meltdown of my account so I had to ring (and wait for over 1h on hold) to submit readings, I then had to ring back (and hold for another hour) and chase for a bill to be created as my online account would not automatically update. I was outright lied to by 3 different call centre people about fixing the account so I switched.

Despite sending me two letters telling me how they would make my switch as painless as possible it was anything but. I had to phone and chase my final meter readings (which they had received, just not done anything with) phone again and chase the final bills and phone AGAIN to chase my credit refund. Every phone call was at least 1 hour on hold.

In all it took 4 months, countless hours on the phone and ultimately a complaint sent directly to the customer services director to get my account credit back. I have never been so glad to leave a company and I will never go back to them.

1cat2fish

Swapped to Scottish power late Nov 2013. Two months later was sent a letter to say direct debit was being increased...by 43%!
Switched from Scottish power Nov 2014 got my gas overpayment back within 2 weeks but I'm still waiting for my electricty overpayment to be paid back 3 and a half month's later. They have blamed a website glitch, ovo energy for not doing the switch properly and Ovo energy for not agreeing with the readings. Ovo energy have been very helpful and have done the switch properly. I have complained to Scottish power and have a complaints number. They are supposed to be keeping me informed whilst they investigate but so far I have heard nothing. I'ts nearly 8 weeks since I complained so it looks like the next step is going to the ombudsman.
Would never EVER use Scottish power again.

JCB_Digger

I moved to Scottish Power in Feb 2013 as part of a group switch "Greater Manchester Fair Energy", all went well with the switch, and until trying to move away I was a happy camper.

In November 2014 I checked and found I could get a better deal by switching to EOn - no problem, I've switched many times before, never had a problem, most times I've earned cashback from the switches, so thought nothing could go wrong :-)

As a matter of course with every energy company we've dealt with we've always overpaid - for us it meant there were no nasty surprises, and when you leave there's a cheque forthcoming within a few days.

Not in this case.. We had overpaid Scottish Power £550 over the time we'd been with them, but they will not return this money, saying there was an issue with their systems.

I have been pursuing this with the Energy Ombudsman since January (I'm regretting this now - in hindsight I should have taken them to small claims court), but the moral to this tale is never, ever make overpayments, if you see that you're in credit by more than £200 before Winter, get your payments adjusted down.

I'll NEVER use Scottish Power again, and if you're reading this before a switch, suggest that you don't either.