Add your feedback on energy supplier Scottish Power

minxette

I had numerous issues with Scottish Power..

Constantly received estimated bills despite inputting correct meter readings online.
Had my direct debit changed 4 times without notification, going from £40 to £120 within 3 months despite the fact my account was over £1000 in credit!
On closing my account in November 2015 when I moved out I phoned them with final meter readings, took pictures too and was advised that I was owed £1200. I provided my forwarding address for them to send me a cheque.. instead I received a further bill for £90. I disputed this with them and the said it was an error, I kept receiving bills until March when I eventually just paid to close my account and hopefully never have to deal with them again...
I kept receiving emails asking me to input meter readings, and kept calling to ask why my account was still open, every time I spoke to them I was told my account would be closed and I wouldn't hear from them again..
In November 2016, a year after moving I received another bill for £175 but under another account number. They have me down as the owner of the property instead of the tenant and are trying to bill me for the 2 months that the property was empty! I opened another complaint with them at the start of December and I am still waiting on any proper update other than them sending 2 emails advising me that they are still looking into my problem and it is taking longer than expected!
Yesterday I received a final demand bill despite customer services telling me that the forwarding address I supplied would be deleted and that no further bills would be sent to me!

They are the worst company I have ever dealt with and I would never use them again.

2010

ScotPowEmployee wrote: »

QUOTE REMOVED BY FORUM TEAM

Why don`t you expose them then and stop making ill advised comments on these boards.

In fact if what you say is true, it`s your duty to send all the evidence and get them jailed.

I`ll watch for the case coming to court with interest.;)

trants

absolute shambles , switched mid January as existing tariff deal was ending with previous supplier .Received welcome e mail then correspondence arrived in post showing wrong supply address even though letter sent to proper address . queried but told everything ok but supply address mistake could not be rectified until after switch , strange but accepted this . out of the blue then received e mail stating transfer had been cancelled , due to previous long queues on telephone decided to e mail customer services as they state replies within 48 hrs . 1 week later still no contact , ring customer services who state the transfer had been cancelled but couldnt explain why and advised I go through the whole application process again , I dont think so . Basically they dont appear able to rectify their mistakes and just cancel transfers without explanation , cannot recommend .

ayrforce1

Switching is easy???????? We rent our current home and gas central heating was installed, for us moving in, doing away with storage heaters. The gas and electricity were both with Scottish Power. I moved the gas to Scottish Gas just after we moved in around 3 years ago, no problem. Then last year I had a dispute with Scottish Power over a bill for our previous home, where they attempted to charge us for electricity for a period considerably after we had moved and for an account we had no knowledge of. They ended up paying me. Due to this matter I decided to switch my electricity to Scottish Gas, should be straight forward, no.
The meter which was used for the storage heating is still in place , serves nothing and did not have any standing charges, basically its obsolete. Scottish Gas have taken over the active meter and since around September 2016 we have been paying them for our standing charge and electricity but they will not take over the obsolete meter as it belongs to Scottish power. Scottish power say that Scottish Gas must take over both meters, and for several months they took a charge from our direct debit, and they are holding this in our account .
We contacted our landlord who put a third party onto the case but several months have gone by and they cannot get this resolved.
So to sum up we pay Scottish gas for electricity and gas and Scottish Power still have an account for us with our money which they will not release and they are not interested in resolving the matter.
Switching is easy ?????????

hybernia

Ayrforce1: constructive inertia seems, on the basis of our own family's experience of this appalling company, to be built in to its modus operandi: the longer it can get away with allowing a situation that exists to its commercial benefit to continue, the longer it will do so.

It is as contemptuous of its customers as it is of the industry regulator, though seeing as this outfit should more accurately be called Spanish Power -- because that's what it is: Spanish -- it's probably not too surprising that Madrid takes not the slightest notice of London. Quite why it still has any customers left -- though rather more to the point, quite why it is still licensed to operate in the UK -- is a mystery.

It's saddening, as well as infuriating, to learn of your own difficulties, as it seems you have no option but to follow, with immediate effect, the complaints procedure already followed by so many before you:

1) A formal, written complaint to ScottishPower. Send it by Royal Mail Special Delivery so that you'll have the date of receipt by the company and the name of the employee who signed for it. Keep the receipt safe as you'll be able to claim the cost back as part of your submission to the Ombudsman Service (Energy) and claim for refund of expenses incurred;

2) ScottishPower will, as noted above, almost certainly do nothing about your complaint, and will instead stick to its current position of keeping your money in its own bank account. Your dispute will go unresolved --- take no notice of the information which the company publishes on its own website about how it handles customer complaints: our family found it to be just pious cant -- and so you can then, after the due period of time elapsed, send a written complaint to the Ombudsman;

3) ScottishPower will eventually pay up, explaining that it's all down to a problem encountered with a new IT system (the system was installed years ago, but the excuse self-servingly lingers on.) Note that the Ombudsman is so nervous of ever being seen to be punitive -- because being punitive is not within its remit -- that the "goodwill" sum you'll be offered by ScottishPower (in addition to the return of your money) will be comparatively paltry. (I say comparatively, because UK consumers have a regulatory watchdog with few teeth and an Ombudsman service which was purposely set up to be entirely toothless.)

Finally . . . do NOT enter into ANY telephone conversation with this company's representatives. Phone conversations and their contents do NOT constitute reliable evidence in the event of an Ombudsman investigation. If you have to respond quickly to the company, do so by email, keeping a copy of the message or messages you authored and a copy of the answer or answers you receive (which in our family's experience, appeared to emanate from somewhere in India and were often barely literate.)

Meantime, the company will doubtless continue with its shameless practice of making charitable contributions which it can then publicise in self-righteous newspaper advertisements as evidence of how caring it truly is and why everyone should get their gas and electricity from so saintly an enterprise.

2010

hybernia wrote: »

Ayrforce1: constructive inertia seems, on the basis of our own family's experience of this appalling company, to be built in to its modus operandi: the longer it can get away with allowing a situation that exists to its commercial benefit to continue, the longer it will do so.

It is as contemptuous of its customers as it is of the industry regulator, though seeing as this outfit should more accurately be called Spanish Power -- because that's what it is: Spanish -- it's probably not too surprising that Madrid takes not the slightest notice of London. Quite why it still has any customers left -- though rather more to the point, quite why it is still licensed to operate in the UK -- is a mystery.

It's saddening, as well as infuriating, to learn of your own difficulties, as it seems you have no option but to follow, with immediate effect, the complaints procedure already followed by so many before you:

1) A formal, written complaint to ScottishPower. Send it by Royal Mail Special Delivery so that you'll have the date of receipt by the company and the name of the employee who signed for it. Keep the receipt safe as you'll be able to claim the cost back as part of your submission to the Ombudsman Service (Energy) and claim for refund of expenses incurred;

2) ScottishPower will, as noted above, almost certainly do nothing about your complaint, and will instead stick to its current position of keeping your money in its own bank account. Your dispute will go unresolved --- take no notice of the information which the company publishes on its own website about how it handles customer complaints: our family found it to be just pious cant -- and so you can then, after the due period of time elapsed, send a written complaint to the Ombudsman;

3) ScottishPower will eventually pay up, explaining that it's all down to a problem encountered with a new IT system (the system was installed years ago, but the excuse self-servingly lingers on.) Note that the Ombudsman is so nervous of ever being seen to be punitive -- because being punitive is not within its remit -- that the "goodwill" sum you'll be offered by ScottishPower (in addition to the return of your money) will be comparatively paltry. (I say comparatively, because UK consumers have a regulatory watchdog with few teeth and an Ombudsman service which was purposely set up to be entirely toothless.)

Finally . . . do NOT enter into ANY telephone conversation with this company's representatives. Phone conversations and their contents do NOT constitute reliable evidence in the event of an Ombudsman investigation. If you have to respond quickly to the company, do so by email, keeping a copy of the message or messages you authored and a copy of the answer or answers you receive (which in our family's experience, appeared to emanate from somewhere in India and were often barely literate.)

Meantime, the company will doubtless continue with its shameless practice of making charitable contributions which it can then publicise in self-righteous newspaper advertisements as evidence of how caring it truly is and why everyone should get their gas and electricity from so saintly an enterprise.

---

or use your legal rights if someone owes you money and issue a money claims online, which they`ll take more notice of.
SP know the lengthy proceedure and play on it so issue a summons instead.

https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

ayrforce1

Many thanks for the guidance. Regarding their "new" IT system , yes I`ve been down that road when I challenged them over the supposed unpaid bill for my previous home.

Frein

We have solar panels and swore after switching four years ago that we would never again go throught the 9 months of agony that it took . However, thanks to MSE we found we could save 30% so switched to Scottish Power from First Utility a couple of months ago, leaving our solar generation tariff administration with FU. All seemed well and we applied to change to an Economy 7 tariff to save even more with SP. After 4 (FOUR) appointments - during which time we were moved to a standard tariff because we were waiting for a new meter (??) - an engineer arrived today to change the meter. In doing so he removed the Export meter from our solar generation set up. So far we have spent three hours on the phone to SP who at various points have tried to put the onus on MicroGen, First Utility and even the original (and now defunct) installer of the panels. We are now awaiting a call back from G4S who have the contract to install for SP. We do not believe we should be dealing with them direct - our contract is with SP. Can anyone suggest a route to a solution?

System

Frein wrote: »

We have solar panels and swore after switching four years ago that we would never again go throught the 9 months of agony that it took . However, thanks to MSE we found we could save 30% so switched to Scottish Power from First Utility a couple of months ago, leaving our solar generation tariff administration with FU. All seemed well and we applied to change to an Economy 7 tariff to save even more with SP. After 4 (FOUR) appointments - during which time we were moved to a standard tariff because we were waiting for a new meter (??) - an engineer arrived today to change the meter. In doing so he removed the Export meter from our solar generation set up. So far we have spent three hours on the phone to SP who at various points have tried to put the onus on MicroGen, First Utility and even the original (and now defunct) installer of the panels. We are now awaiting a call back from G4S who have the contract to install for SP. We do not believe we should be dealing with them direct - our contract is with SP. Can anyone suggest a route to a solution?

I know this might sound daft but have you spoken to your FIT provider? They might be able help get some form of resolution as steps will have to be taken to change the meter number on the FIT database. I had a guy from G4S visit about a month or so ago who looked carefully at the meter; took down its number etc.

Frein

Thanks Hengus,

But yes, our FIT supplier is First Utility and they are part of the vicious circle we are rotating with today!