Add your feedback on energy supplier Scottish Power

Cityboy01

Have been ONLINE FIXED PRICE ENERGY with Scottish Power for 1 year this month. I cannot wait to change due to extremely poor communication, customer service and no integrity or ethics when it comes to direct debit charges and refunds.


THE FACTS:
Claiming my usage was higher than expected they have more than doubled my monthly direct debit (without prior authorisation) from £59 to £141 which resulted in an overcharge for consumption and them owing me £374.05 net as of today (10-Oct-2013). My experience so far:


(1) They claim to review the direct debit charge every quarter but factually do not.The direct debit increase happened over 6 months ago and has not been reviewed since.



(2) They did not refund my credit balance as discussed and agreed over the phone. The consultant was very resistant to my request for a refund and tried to talk me out of reducing my direct debit. I now know he lied to me about refunding me within 14 days. I am still waiting.

(3) They offer an online option to reduce your direct debit payments but charge of c.£15+ for doing so. Is this even legal?

(4) Their customer service phone service takes you through the usual labyrinth before suddenly cutting off without warning.



(5) They did not reply to any of my follow-up emails (except the usual automated responses)


My view of Scottish Power is they use customers Direct Debit agreements as licence to help themselves to free cash advances through over-charging, justifying the practice with their "variable direct debit" clause.


AVOID.

vickyanne_2

Used to be ok but are terrible now. Can never get through to them and when you do the advisers never seem able to do anything. Unfortunately they're always cheapest for us as we have economy 7. Took me all this week to speak to someone about altering our tariff and then a long time to get them to agree to setting the DD at the right amount. They just want to get you to overpay and always be in credit. They usually raise my DD in winter and then drop it in summer??? surely that's not the way a monthly DD scheme should work?
I think they're a set of money grabbing cheating inept muppets!

pandora205

Well I'm already a SP customer on Online Fixed Price Energy November 2013 which is about to finish so I ran my consumption details through the comparison websites to find the best tariff. This turned out to be SPs Online Fixed Price Energy March 2015. When I logged in to the website it recognised me as an existing customer and directed me to swap through my account. However, this deal wasn't showing at all. I've just spent 40 mins on the phone (came home at lunch time to do this too) listening to no music/random bits of music with no idea how long I was queuing for. Anyway, I eventually got through and made the swap.

I also asked whether I could see my Economy 7 consumption as when I was checking yesterday I couldn't find it. Apparently they don't show this online at all, so I had to wait while they checked and then gave me a percentage of usage. This isn't very satisfactory - especially as I'm trying to increase my usage and see how well I am doing. I couldn't see previous months figures apart from a graph, so that wasn't helpful. I think I'll have to keep my own data in future.

pandora205

Another thought, why don't they have online reps here like E-On do. It would be very useful....

Please note Scottish Power!

DragonQ

Scottish Power are having a laugh with their latest fix (Online Fixed Price Energy February 2015). 34.25p/day standing charge then ~12p/kWh for just electricity. A further 34.25p/day standing charge then ~3.6p/kWh for gas. You'd have to use a hell of a lot of energy for that to be any good!

dorset76_2

Rubbish. Totally utterly rubbish.

I signed up with Scottish Power in February/March of this year after moving into a new home and had to chase them to send me the terms and conditions, which involved being on hold to their customer services team for hours (not a good start!). I received a letter on April 4 saying that someone would be in touch soon to arrange my boiler inspection, which forms part of my HomeComfort Boiler Care, which is part of what I am paying for by being a Platinum Fixed Energy April 2015 customer. It was one of the reasons I signed up as I thought it would be useful in a new house.

Come September, nobody had been in touch. Literally nobody. No emails, no letters, no phone calls. (I had a baby in April and was quite tied up with her so not really able to chase SP as much as I would like!)

I emailed them in September saying that as I am basically paying for a premium service that I do not receive, as such I would like my Homecomfort payments refunded.

I had one email reply and two phone calls from Scottish Power in the week of Sept 18 - both telling me that my complaint had been passed to senior managers and was being escalated and would be dealt with as a matter of urgency - and then I heard nothing more. It's now the end of October.

If anyone has any advice on what I should do now I'd be grateful. My baby is now six months old and starting to crawl so I have even less time to be chasing up shoddy energy companies. Plus, the weather is getting colder and I still haven't had my bloody boiler checked!

I didn't have to pay energy bills in my old flat - it was included in the rent - so I am new to this and would appreciate any words of wisdom!

LesU

I must be one of lucky ones. Was on SP 'fixed until Jan 2014' tariff. My initial DD was a little low after last winter, but when the review came round SP increased the DD to pretty much what I expected. Part of the year I owed them and this part of the year they owe me, but that is just before consumption starts to rise again.

Decided to switch to 'fixed until end March 2015', went on line submitted meter readings, got quotes for all of their products, selected the correct product, got a revised DD calculated, which is slightly lower than at the moment. The consumption estimate is, of course, based on last winter, so may end up too high eventually.
My account now shows the new tariff and the new DD. All done on-line.

What is more the tariff I selected came out the cheapest in comparisons and I'm only paying 7% more than my last fixed tariff, but fixed for two whole winters. So my increase works out about 3-4% per year.

grabbit

After battling with Scottish Power for several years I finally complained to the ombudsman because of their insistence on re-evaluating my direct debit payments without any factual historical or future data.

Guess what ......
Toothless, spineless, powerless Ombudsman says that while they should base direct debits on reality, they don't have to.

Goodbye Scottish Power. AND Energy regulator. You are the weakest link !

Stoodles

I've just tried to switch to Online Fixed February 2015 tariff, but have been told it isn't yet on their system, so I will be put on a waiting list. I requested an email to confirm that I will definitely be put onto the tariff, but it only confirms I'll be put on the waiting list.

Haver responded "Unless you can provide that assurance, I would be wiser to move to another company who can put me onto a fixed tariff now.", and now awaiting an outcome.

I'm currently with Scottish Power, and have always found them helpful and efficient. Like every energy company, they play the game of trying to hike my DD, but they are always amenable to me telling them what is reasonable.. I'd like to stay with them, but won't if they can't be straight over their tariffs.

alba7

I've been with Scottish Power for about 2 years and always found them helpful - until recently.

I wanted to switch to the March 2015 fix when it went live but it didn't appear on my online account page. After trying - and failing - to get in touch through the phone, I managed to organise a call back. It didn't happen. About 2 hours later, Scottish Power called, I answered and they promptly cut me off! 3 days later, about 9 o'clock at night, they called again, I told the call centre guy what I wanted and he said he couldn't help. Told me to call back first thing in the morning.

The tarriff was pulled that night. Not impressed with Scottish Power now.