Scottish Power doublecharging by mistake

fortingall

I have discovered that Scottish Power, probably due to an error in their system, double charge their customers. Here's a snapshot from my bill history to illustrate this:

Date Bills/Charges Payments Balance
18/03/13 £184.07 (actual) ---- £345.52 in Debit
14/03/13 £161.45 (estimate) ---- £161.45 in Debit
15/12/12 ---- £186.88 £0.00 in Debit
13/12/12 £135.58 (actual) ---- £186.88 in Debit
13/12/12 £132.30 (estimate) ---- £51.30 in Debit
19/09/12 ---- £80.72 £81.00 in Credit
06/07/12 ---- £128.00 £0.28 in Credit
01/07/12 £127.72 (actual) ---- £127.72 in Debit

For example, on Dec 13, 2012 I had £81.00 credit in my account, and they have produced an estimate bill of £132.30. When I have sent the meter readings, the system produced an £135.58 actual charge, but then ADDED THE TWO and listed me as £188.88 due (135.58+132.30-81.00). I haven't paid attention and paid by card £186.88 on the 15th. THIS MEANS I HAVE BEEN OVERCHARGED BY £132.30! And SP kept mum!

On March 18, I have received an estimate of £161.45, and when I have sent my actual readings the system produced an actual bill of £184.07. However, the two numbers were added up and my account shows as £345.52 in debit.

This seems to happen every time there's an actual charge after an estimate has been produced, so I - AND OTHER CUSTOMERS in my position - might have SYSTEMATICALLY paid twice for years. Unfortunately, the online form does not show the payment history more than 14 months back.

I have called them in the past several times when the pattern of payments was out of order, but didn't get any useful results, just a load of balderdash.

Check your online bill history and if you find instances of the same, please let SP know.

This is a serious matter. Even if there's only a software error, SP/IBERDROLA should be audited and they should return the money to their customers with apologies.

Scottish_Power

Fortingall

This does not sound like a fault in our billing system, but perhaps a shortfall in the way we have explained the bills to you. Please send us an e-mail to [EMAIL="social@scottishpower.com"]social@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] and we will take a look for you. Thanks David

SwanJon

To be fair my first impressions were the same as David's.
The information you have given shows that you have been charged about £740 for around 11 months' usage (assuming the July bill was for three months), which is entirely within the realms of possiblility.
As you have not provided readings, or the dates of readings, it is not possible to check if you are being 'doublecharged'.

Can you post again with the dates of the first and last reading from each bill, and the reads themselves?

Ich_2

Yes agreed, the thread is useless without the estimated & actual meter readings

fortingall

Ich and SwanJon,

Thank you for weighting in. I understand you being skeptical at this point. How could SP have this happening and not notice it ?

I'm also at fault, since I'm dealing with databases and web interfaces in my day to day work and it took me quite a while to notice this billing problem. But, hey, being due a bogus £300 sort of grabbed my attention.

To answer your question, I include here two links to 1) my actual readings and 2) two graphs, starting Sep 2010. I extracted these numbers from the "Thank you for your meter readings" emails from SP.

1) postimage-dot-org/image/y6xzn83f9/

2) postimage-dot-org/image/gm52ky697/

(please replace the -dot-, as new user MSE does not allow me to post links)

The Consumption plot is what one would expect from a normal household, with steeper slopes during the winters. However, the Payments are much harder to explain. What caused the huge bills in the spring of 2012 ? I remember calling SP about that, receiving an unconvincing explanation and dropping the matter out of frustration.

Now having this data available, what do you think ? How does one explain the math on the bill from my initial post ? Can one explain why SP took from me an extra £132.30 before setting my account to £0.00 due ? Can one explain the March 18 due sum of £345.52 ?

victor2

Your links are to the same image of the graphs.
I would give SP the opportunity to explain the bills - it could be a case of you not interpreting the data presented correctly. Hard to believe there's such a fundamental error in their systems, as you surely wouldn't be the first person to pick up on it.
To do a quick check, get your annual usage in kWh and price it at the rate you've been on. That should give you an idea what you should have been charged for the year. Don't forget to consider the starting and ending balances indicated though.

fortingall

Victor2, thanks for pointing out the wrong link. It's now fixed. Indeed, it is hard to believe I'm the first to notice this problem, but then how do you explain the numbers ?

victor2

Links are:
http://postimage.org/image/y6xzn83f9/
http://postimage.org/image/gm52ky697/

What are the 3 different meter readings for?

SwanJon

That helps, a bit, but does raise more questions.
As Victor asks, what are the 3 meters?
The reading dates don't line up with the bills - What were the readings on the bills? And the dates of those reads?
(e.g. You have a bill on 1 July 2012, but a reading on 6 July 2012)
You have a reading and a payment in September, but no bill - was there a reason one wasn't produced?
Is it possible that the first December bill was for energy used from July - September, and the second from September to December?
You don't show a reading for December (real or estimated)

Your consumption chart is more confusing than it needs to be. You are plotting readings not consumption, so cumulative consumption, but from when the meter was fitted, not neccesarily from when you moved in. By stacking the readings you further muddy the waters.

We haven't established if there is a problem to notice yet.

fortingall

Victor2, thank you for posting the actual links. I think that one can include the URLs between IMG tags to have the images visible inline.

fortingall

SwanJon, thank you for looking at this more carefully.

Indeed, the dates are the dates when I submitted readings (from SP's confirmation emails), and the payments in the table are the closest payment to the respective reading. Typical date intervals between a reading and a payment would be between 0 and 7 days, but these offsets will not show given the scale of the plots.

And you are right, on the y-axis we have the actual readings from the table. The three meter readings are of course,
1 - White Meter Day
2 - White Meter Night
3 - White Meter Off-Peak

Now to get back to the problem at hand instead of getting lost in the detail, I would be curious to read an explanation for the numbers in my initial post.