SSE - £150 + VAT (to deliver letter)

SwanJon

Are these the first recovery charges on the accounts?

Has any other recovery action taken place that they may now be charging you for?
e.g. Reminders, red reminders, phone calls, other visits?

molerat

victor2 wrote: »

Using the daily CV figures from National Grid at http://marketinformation.natgrid.co.uk/gas/DataItemExplorer.aspx, and taking 1 Jan to 31 March this year, I get an average of 39.27556 for the EM region (where I am). My latest statement uses a CV of 39.2
If you take Ofgem's annual "typical medium consumption figures" for gas, of 16,500kWh and reverse it back to HCF at 39.2 it gives 523.59HCF. Converted to kWh at 39.27556, it gives 16,529kWh (rounded down).
At my current gas rate of 3.45p/kWh (without discount or VAT), that equates to £1.02 on a typical annual usage that I would be undercharged.
Multiply it by "millions" of customers, and it could amount to lost profit for the supplier, but what would it cost them to handle complaints they were overcharging?
You could of course take National Grid's published CV over a short period of time and show that you were overcharged. For example, in EM, they indicated a CV of 39.0 from the 5th to 9th of March this year. IF you were billed for just those 5 days at 39.2, you could argue you were overcharged by 0.51%.

Maybe my supplier has tightened up their calculation of an average CV for billing purposes, but it still appears to be in my favour in comparison to when I looked at it a few years ago.

Just checked my last bill. My calculation is 40.28421 and billed at 40.2. This means I was undercharged by 22p for the period against being charged on the generally used average of 40.3.

philD_2

SwanJon wrote: »

Are these the first recovery charges on the accounts?

Has any other recovery action taken place that they may now be charging you for?
e.g. Reminders, red reminders, phone calls, other visits?

Yes, these are the first charges - A single envelope was dropped through my letterbox which contained two letters (one for gas & one for elec). At the top right of each letter it says 'PLEASE NOTE YOU HAVE BEEN CHARGED A COLLECTIONS ADMIN FE OF £75.00 EXCLUDING VAT FOR THIS VISIT (Charge applies to each utility supplied). There is no signature, two confusing dates and the letter is fraught with spelling mistakes.

I've asked for clarity/breakdown of the fees but SSE are simply 'not playing ball'. I would have issued a County Court Summons to SSE for the amounts above but they are based in Scotland which makes things a little more tricky and expensive.

chanz4

You will also need to check what the warrant application fees are for your sheriffs office

SwanJon

philD wrote: »

Yes, these are the first charges

So how much do you think they should charge for all the follow up steps that they have taken? Per letter, per (attempted) phone call, per (attempted) visit?
To me your best argument may be to reduce the charge as there was only one visit, but every other step will be duplicated

philD wrote: »

I would have issued a County Court Summons to SSE for the amounts above but they are based in Scotland which makes things a little more tricky and expensive.

A summons to do what? Have you cleared the balance including these charges?

As you are now sticking to an agreed payment plan there will be no further charges, but as a reminder for other readers this is not the end of the process. The steps that chanz4 lists (and charges for them) will continue until an agreed paln is in place (DD, PPM etc) or the balance is cleared. These will be closer to £150 per fuel on top of the previous charges.
Take control, speak to your supplier - if you are going to have to have a PPM, agree to it before the charges kick in.

misterbarlow

Duplicate charges like that are mainly down to internal billing systems I think..
Even though a single SSE operative may have called from the debt team for both accounts, he works for SSE debt recovery, and has called on behalf of two separate parts of the SSE supply business, SSE gas supply and SSE electric supply, and the debt dept will then bill each supply arm internally for the visit, and the supply business will ask them to pass those charges onto you, which is why you have two charges for the one visit..

A large supply company like SSE is in reality made up of dozens of sub businesses, that all inter bill each others budgets..
I change meters for fault or recert generally, but if i go out with debt guys for the day or fraud guys, their dept then internally pays my dept my salary for that day, etc...

You would have had MANY letters and offers of help of making reduced payments etc for some time from SSE, as well as offers of fitting prepay meters, all of this well before your account would be passed to the inhouse debt teams, and then incurred these extra charges for them calling to your property...

accounts are often not passed to the debt guys to call or attempt warrants until its a last resort for the company and often not until over 12 months, and its only given to them when there is no back communication from the customer and their letters and phone calls go repeatedly unanswered...

philD_2

SwanJon wrote: »

So how much do you think they should charge for all the follow up steps that they have taken? Per letter, per (attempted) phone call, per (attempted) visit?
To me your best argument may be to reduce the charge as there was only one visit, but every other step will be duplicated


A summons to do what? Have you cleared the balance including these charges?

As you are now sticking to an agreed payment plan there will be no further charges, but as a reminder for other readers this is not the end of the process. The steps that chanz4 lists (and charges for them) will continue until an agreed paln is in place (DD, PPM etc) or the balance is cleared. These will be closer to £150 per fuel on top of the previous charges.
Take control, speak to your supplier - if you are going to have to have a PPM, agree to it before the charges kick in.

SSE are a service provider nothing more. If a fee is applied to an account then the company needs to be able to justify the fee in question. SSE have provided little information regarding the way the fee is calculated - simply because they can't. When I've made a complaint they 'brush my questions off', provide little information and say that they are now assuming my complaint has been answered and the complaint is being closed.

philD_2

chanz4 wrote: »

You will also need to check what the warrant application fees are for your sheriffs office

chanz4

I'm told this was at Leeds Magistrate Court - I requested a copy of the document but SSE would not provide it nor would they provide the date the warrant was requested (if true). They have however charged further fees for this.

I'm just getting started with this issue, so I'll contact my local court to get the above details as part of what may prove to be a long drawn out battle with SSE.

chanz4

The court will be able to provide a copy, but all the warrant says it the supplier is asking for entry to your property under the rights of entry gas and electricity board act

philD_2

That's cool. So a supplier (service provider) loses money based on their CV charges of gas (as quoted by some people). How do they make money then or are they a charity that wish to provide the UK with cheap gas (and elec).