Scottish Power bill after meter change

ahpm1978

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice please on how to approach Scottish power regarding what I can only describe as an absolutely ludicrous bill. They recently insisted on changing my meter as it was 10+ years old and I agreed to them doing this last month.

I've consistently been paying £50 by direct debit every month for the 6 year I've owned my property which is a top floor 2 bedroom flat, no gas and only economy 7 storage heating available. As I live myself the heating only really goes on a couple of month of the year or if I've guests which aren't often.

Today's bill shows my previous account balance as £500+ in credit before applying charges in excess of £2000 and giving me a balance in debit of over £1700.

Admittedly I couldn't tell you when the last meter reading was but I cannot believe that I could have such a bill and the only thing which stands out as obvious is the change of meter.

Has anyone else encountered such a problem?

Thanks

Nada666

Check the reading on previous bills. Have they restarted things from zero correctly? They may have mistakenly subtracted the old meter's final reading from the new one.

Scottish_Power

Hi ahpm1978 welcome to the forum. Please send us an e-mail to [EMAIL="social@scottishpower.com"]social@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] and we will look into this for you. Thanks David

susannthe3cs

I'd love Scottish power to change my meters as I think these meters have been in 22 years and its costing me a bomb as I'm sure they are just that old they are on a make believe tarrif

misterbarlow

when they changed the meter they should have left a card or sticker with all the readings, on or near the meter..
double check them against the bill...

victor2

ahpm1978 wrote: »

Admittedly I couldn't tell you when the last meter reading was but I cannot believe that I could have such a bill and the only thing which stands out as obvious is the change of meter.

Maybe you've been billed on estimated readings for some time and the meter change meant that they finally caught up with a real reading.
Check your bills to see if previous readings were marked as estimates - it's indicated on the bill.
Another possibility is that they've not recorded the meter change correctly. There should be a card on the new meter saying what the old and new meter readings were at the changeover. Make sure your bill agrees with that. That happened to me with an electrcity meter change. Resulting bill would have been for over £5,000 worth of electricity in a day! The supplier did sort it out at no cost to me once I told them about it though.

victor2

susannthe3cs wrote: »

I'd love Scottish power to change my meters as I think these meters have been in 22 years and its costing me a bomb as I'm sure they are just that old they are on a make believe tarrif

The meters have nothing to do with the tariff you're on.
It is possible they could be recording incorrectly, which may be in your favour or against you. Fairly easy to check your electricity meter yourself, by running only a known load (such as an electric heater on full) for about an hour. Harder with gas meters though. If you have past bills and your annual usage in units or kWh (not £) hasn't varied too much, then the chances are it is still reading as it used to - doesn't mean it hasn't always been wrong though.

macman

ahpm1978 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice please on how to approach Scottish power regarding what I can only describe as an absolutely ludicrous bill. They recently insisted on changing my meter as it was 10+ years old and I agreed to them doing this last month.

I've consistently been paying £50 by direct debit every month for the 6 year I've owned my property which is a top floor 2 bedroom flat, no gas and only economy 7 storage heating available. As I live myself the heating only really goes on a couple of month of the year or if I've guests which aren't often.

Today's bill shows my previous account balance as £500+ in credit before applying charges in excess of £2000 and giving me a balance in debit of over £1700.

Admittedly I couldn't tell you when the last meter reading was but I cannot believe that I could have such a bill and the only thing which stands out as obvious is the change of meter.

Has anyone else encountered such a problem?

Thanks

Since your DD hasn't altered in 6 years, (during which unit prices have massively increased) you are almost certainly in receipt of a big catch-up bill after several estimated bills, and now an 'actual' bill based on readings taken when the meter was changed. Have you not been submitting quarterly readings? The supplier is only required to read the meter every two years. When was it last read by the supplier?
£50 pm for E7 was barely adequate 6 years ago, it would probably be twice that now.

[Deleted User]

I went to a house ( may be the same one ! ) last week, where the occupier had being paying estimated direct debits of only approx £60 a quarter for both gas and electric combined for years. This was a largish 3 bedder. He was quite happy to be paying such a low ammount and had taken absolutely no effort to submit any meter readings in years. The meter had been changed in 2007 from an imperial to a metric meter and Scottish Power was nt aware of the meter exchange. Judging by how many metric units were on the meter £65 a quarter was no where near enough to cover this O.A.Ps heating bills. The point is , he was quite happy to be paying such a lowly estimated ammount and certainly was nt going to rock the boat by submitting his own meter readings. I did tell him to expect a huge catch up bill shortly. Now he will be screaming foul play when he deliberately did nt want to pay his proper bills. I am afraid this is typical of the general publics attitude to estimated billing. No doubt he will get away with a large portion of his true bills, as was his intention

jalexa

sacsquacco wrote: »

I went to a house ( may be the same one ! ) last week, where the occupier had being paying estimated direct debits of only approx £60 a quarter for both gas and electric combined for years.

Every statement I receive contains wording similar to "as you pay by direct debit you do not need to take any action". As it happens I provide monthly reads. Sometimes the statement includes a bogus DD recalculation but that is another matter.

To change tack, people are entitled to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Are you sure you weren't a meter reader in 1984?

On the face of it the supplier has been multiply negligent. Did it achieve its licence obligation to make every effort to make biennial inspections? If obstructed what follow-up? In the absence of customer own reads how often were meter reader calls scheduled? How long since the last read? When was the last DD review?

Unless the supplier has very good answers to what appears to be fundamental billing system process failure it is the supplier not the customer who should stand accused.

[Deleted User]

I fully agree with you Jalexa, the supplier is equally at fault in this house i visited last week. There had been a meter exchange which somehow Scot Power had missed . My company, G4S have only just started reading Scot Power customers so I would think other correct meter readings in the past would have been rejected by auto billing as they did nt follow on, hence the years of estimates. In this case the old canny occupier was well aware he was nt paying enough, he told me that, but was happy to pay what Scot Power had asked for. Now hes going to enter battle with Scot Power demanding the catch up bills be scrubbed I expect