Beware of unnecessary payment hikes - Scottish Power

Scottish_Power

nsdlil wrote: »

Dear David ,
I have sent an e-mail to [EMAIL="social@scottishpower.com"]social@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] in respect of this MSE Forum Thread at 09:58 today with the subject heading 'Company Representative Request' . I hope that this additional posted reply will enable you to link the thread and my e-mail properly ,
Thank you

Hi nsdlil we received your e-mail and are looking into it. We will get back to you by e-mail. Thanks David

eschaton

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

Eschaton Our service level is to respond to a written enquiry within 5 working days, and if it is a complaint within 10 working days with an acknowledgement within 5 working days. I am sorry that you have not had the level of service that you would expect and if you would like me to look into that for you, I would be happy to do so.

David

Well my e-mail wasn't a complaint - it is a simple question asking if I can leave Scottish Power during the last month without needing to pay the cancellation fees. Obviously switching suppliers takes a variable length of time. A reply after 2 weeks to say it will take another 10 days to answer is what I got. Pathetic service isn't it David?

paulnjulia

Ok, I have very quickly read this thread, probably not very well, I'm only interested in airing my grief!!

As my power bill almost equals my £100K monthly mortgage payment, enough is enough.

Unfortunately SP were busy tonight and it made me do sum somes while i listened to various songs on their hold music. I read the first post on this thread (after) and agree wholeheartedly that SP's prediction of use is dodgy!. Also I don't seem to be getting advance warnings of changes to the direct debit, which i understand is in breach of the direct debit scheme.

So when their Request a callback facility is working I'm going to use it. I can save £400 by switching according to uswitch, but I'm not doing that just yet, I'm going to pay my bill monthly, in arrears!! I will provide a weekly reading (in fact if it would annoy them i may do a daily one, I have no life), then I will pay for the energy I have used. I know this will be a struggle, but the stupid thing is, these companies have now woken us up and we will seek alternative fuel sources as well as being more frugal with our power use anyway. I have 4 sweaters and 3 hoodies, and an outdoor coat!! so I can wait until March before i have to put the heating on next year!! All I know, is I won't be paying £250 for a months power again, for at least 5 years!!!

ok rant over, let me get back to my Raspberry Pi!!

Have a good evening all.

Paulnotjulia

anotheruser

For me, it's a shame as I am now paying £95 per month (dual fuel) compared with how I started last year at just £65, but each meter reading cycle being a few hundred pounds in debt

It's the cheapest tariff though.

Just a shame I can't have a fixed direct debt and pay off if I am in debt when I enter my metre readings, which is what I have been doing. NPower used to let me do that (so I could self medicate the DD amount) and they had a great app where I could send meter readings easily, and so did on a weekly basis.

Will calculate my last years usage and see what I probably should be paying.

Does anyone have any tools to help calculate how much I should be paying?

DragonQ

If I was in debt, I would certainly expect to be able to pay it off before setting my direct debit to my current usage amount. Not being able to do this is silly. You can find out how much you should be paying by simply taking your annual kWh and applying the unit costs, standing charge and discounts (as appropriate) for your tariff in Excel.

By the way, "metre" is the unit of measurement, "meter" is the measurement device.

anoncol

eschaton wrote: »

Well my e-mail wasn't a complaint - it is a simple question asking if I can leave Scottish Power during the last month without needing to pay the cancellation fees. Obviously switching suppliers takes a variable length of time. A reply after 2 weeks to say it will take another 10 days to answer is what I got. Pathetic service isn't it David?

It looks like its taken 6+ days to even reply here to you. Ace service there.

dave8204

I've fairly recently changed to NPower for Gas and Electricity.By way of welcome they slapped a standing charge onto their Gas prices twice that of the company I'd just left.
More relevant to this thread before changing (to save money!!) being a very light user I was paying EDF £26 a month for my electricity and Eon 30 pounds a year for Gas,yes a year.
Because Eon stuffed up on my final bill I had cause to ring NPower to sort that out during which conversation their rep discussed my usage.A letter arrived yesterday saying they'd calculated how much I needed to pay them monthly "due to anticipated usage",£55 for Electricity and £60 for Gas...............that's a monthly payment of more than I paid in the previous 2 years!! The good thing is that it's stirred me finally getting around to ditching them,my first DD dosn't get taken out until the first of next month....and it won't be getting taken out.From experience with other companies,robbed by EON,still waiting for money back from EDF,I've found it's easier to not pay them than try to get owed money back.as the letter specifically states that the amount is for "future usage" I'm not cancelling any money owed.

eschaton

anoncol wrote: »

It looks like its taken 6+ days to even reply here to you. Ace service there.

Look on the bright side - the service is consistent if nothing else, consistently !!!!!.

I got an e-mail reply yesterday from Scottish Power - exactly 3 weeks after I first asked the simple question whether I would need to pay the cancellation fees during the last month.

I am still waiting on a clear answer. The reply states that my deal ends on 30th June after which the cancellation fees will no longer be applicable. I just want a yes or no - not a statement about what I already know. I only asked because I read on MSE that some suppliers don't charge in the final month.

Kathryn Westbrook went on again about how my payment is worked out. I never read all the drivel as the lies / wrong figures were evident very early so I didn't waste my time.

The funny ending was.... It may interest you to know that we currently have a deal called Online Fixed Price Energy August 2014 blah blah blah.

My reply included - As for any other deals - never......

I have insurance companies that I won't ever use even if they are the cheapest due to poor service. Scottish Power are the first energy supplier to join that list.

genius149

I am also having a major argument with Scottish Power.

I submitted my meter readings on the 11th May and my account showed as being £144 in debit.

A couple of days later I received an email stating that my dd would be going up to something silly like £184!!!!

I called up to be told that there was nothing that could be done, however the gentleman on the end of the phone changed my tarrif for a cheaper one ..... which he then said would take my dd down to £164... but he also told me to take meter reads on the the 3rd June and ring up again to see if these made any difference.

Well as insructed I called yesterday (after being on hold for 35 minutes) finally spoke to someone who after taking the readings told me that the dd would now be £166!!!

I asked to speak to a manager and he refused, and said that a manager would not be able to over ride the system and that I would have to raise a formal complaint. This is exactly what I have done!! However this could take up to 3 days for them to get back in touch with me, which will mean that the DD is likely to be taken at the higher rate as it will be too later for them to change it....

I have always been really impressed with Scottish Power up until now, my DD has been the same for nearly two year and infact about 6 months ago they tried to put it down, which I refused and told them to keep it at the same level as it would put me into arrears - funny how they can manually change it for an overpayment????

What infuriates me the most is that my daily average for my gas (which is the culprit of the slightly higher bills) in the last month has dropped down from an average of 108 units per day to 26 (partly because I have turned the heating off and am refusing to turn it back on!!).

My other question is, how £16 a month extra, a total of £48 a quarter is really going to make a huge difference in the grand schem of things when we are just about to hit the summer season.

I am totally bemused and also disgusted that I am not being listened to by scottish power, but currently do not want to change supplier as I am paying arrears back from where we first moved into the property (and were with eon) and I think to move suppliers would just cause even more of a nightmare!!

Rant over! good luck to everybody else dealing with Scottish Power at the moment as they really dont seem to have the customers best interests at mind.

Wywth

genius149 wrote: »

I am also having a major argument with Scottish Power.

I submitted my meter readings on the 11th May and my account showed as being £144 in debit.

A couple of days later I received an email stating that my dd would be going up to something silly like £184!!!!

I called up to be told that there was nothing that could be done, however the gentleman on the end of the phone changed my tarrif for a cheaper one ..... which he then said would take my dd down to £164... but he also told me to take meter reads on the the 3rd June and ring up again to see if these made any difference.

Well as insructed I called yesterday (after being on hold for 35 minutes) finally spoke to someone who after taking the readings told me that the dd would now be £166!!!

I asked to speak to a manager and he refused, and said that a manager would not be able to over ride the system and that I would have to raise a formal complaint. This is exactly what I have done!! However this could take up to 3 days for them to get back in touch with me, which will mean that the DD is likely to be taken at the higher rate as it will be too later for them to change it....

I have always been really impressed with Scottish Power up until now, my DD has been the same for nearly two year and infact about 6 months ago they tried to put it down, which I refused and told them to keep it at the same level as it would put me into arrears - funny how they can manually change it for an overpayment????

What infuriates me the most is that my daily average for my gas (which is the culprit of the slightly higher bills) in the last month has dropped down from an average of 108 units per day to 26 (partly because I have turned the heating off and am refusing to turn it back on!!).

My other question is, how £16 a month extra, a total of £48 a quarter is really going to make a huge difference in the grand schem of things when we are just about to hit the summer season.

I am totally bemused and also disgusted that I am not being listened to by scottish power, but currently do not want to change supplier as I am paying arrears back from where we first moved into the property (and were with eon) and I think to move suppliers would just cause even more of a nightmare!!

Rant over! good luck to everybody else dealing with Scottish Power at the moment as they really dont seem to have the customers best interests at mind.

This MSE article should help you better understand

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits