MSE News: Scottish Power to pay £8.5m for mis-selling – are you due a share?

suzukigirl2009

I haven't been a customer of SP for at least three years now, but the previous property that I was living in already had SP as the supplier so we decided to stay with them. The first month was £78 for dual fuel and from there on it went up every month until it hit £248. Being on benefits at the time made it very hard to be able to afford this and we left the company and went back to EDF Energy, who we have used for a number of years with no worries at all. When EDF came around to put in new meters, which we requested, they found that we had a gas leak which had obviously been going on for some time. I can't understand why SP never picked up on this as there was obviously a big increase over a short period of time.

Sallyanngirl

minislim wrote: »

i feel that their more recent fixed price deals may have been effected by miss selling too.

i compared scottish power with my old energy deal with Npower (prior to hikes) and it was only a few pounds dearer. the cost of gas was cheaper and the reduction in unit cost shorter while the electric a little more expensive and the same unit amounts.

we primarily use alot more gas than electric anyway.

so i signed up to it.

over 12 months the amount of energy used is about the same.

yet the direct debit amounts keep creeping up.

it used to be £95 per month and now its up to £135 a month!

something doesnt stack up?

i reckon they're doing the old building up of credit trick which i've read about on here before.

There is no 'old building up credit' trick - when you pay by monthly direct debit you are expected to pay the SAME amount every month to cover your usage for the whole year - if your actual usage is higher than anticipated - for example last winter - then your payment will increase to cover the shortfall!! You are expected to build up a credit during summer to cover your increased winter usage & the payment amount will change according to actual consumption - enter readings online often to let the system better work out your consumption.

Sallyanngirl

missbungle wrote: »

This an old post from 2011 but I just thought I'd repost to see if anything could be done about this.

We moved into an apartment block and were automatically with npower, I did some research online and found my switching to Scottish Power would save us money or so I thought. When I joined SP we started paying £55 a month just for electricity which didn't seem too bad. Then later on in the year it actually went up to £56 which wasn't a problem. The next year it actually went down to £10 a month then to £11 a month that summer. We thought it was quite low but didn't really think to check it out as we just thought we must be using loads less. That year we actually received a letter saying we were in credit by £500 and they sent us a cheque soon after for £250. All this time when they had requested meter readings I had provided them. It's not as straightforward as we don't have access to our meters in the building and we have to ring the company that own the building for someone to come and read them. I rang up to give my meter reading once and the lady on the phone said 'by the way do you know you're in debit by a thousand pounds?' Obviously you can imagine my horror at that. I obviously questioned her and she said that that was how much we owed. After numerous phonecalls we were sent a letter saying we were allowed to pay it back in installments so we worked out we'd pay £104 a month. I ran this by my Dad and he asked for a breakdown of how they came to that amount and he worked out that they had charged us at the higher electricity tariff which was very sneaky. We sent an e-mail with all the workings out at the fairer tariff and they agreed to reduce it to £84. I'm really annoyed because at the bottom of their letters they say that they will let you know of any payment changes. I think they were wrong for charging us £10 or £11 in the first place and it's not our place to question it as they're the service providers. It must have been a mistake that was theirs and we're now paying for it!!! Is there anything we can do or is too late?

We've now paid the debt to them but still don't think it was fair! Has anyone got any advice? This was back in 2011. Thanks!

If you live in a block of flats probably meters in a communal cupboard & meter companies often don't label meters correctly or pass correct info to suppliers which is what prob happened in your case - did you get a letter/e-mail of explanation?:)

Sallyanngirl

Nada666 wrote: »

Disgusting that most of the money is going to some of their richest poor customers. When is this idiotic policy of giving more and more money to those who do not need it end?

That's all government & politicians!

KTF

suzukigirl2009 wrote: »

I can't understand why SP never picked up on this as there was obviously a big increase over a short period of time.

Or you could flip it round and say why didnt you go and check the meter given the big increase over a short period of time?

The readings just go into the system, they would be there forever if they employed a team who had to call people up\send out a team every time there was a spike in a customers usage.

missbungle

Sallyanngirl wrote: »

If you live in a block of flats probably meters in a communal cupboard & meter companies often don't label meters correctly or pass correct info to suppliers which is what prob happened in your case - did you get a letter/e-mail of explanation?:)

We lived in an apartment block and we didn't have access to our meters as they were in a locked cupboard in the garage. We had to ring the local council if we wanted meter readings. No we didn't get a letter, she just told me on the phone that we owed £1000! Then we worked out a payment plan.

I feel agrieved about it especially when they should have been monitoring our account!

KTF

missbungle wrote: »

I feel agrieved about it especially when they should have been monitoring our account!

Who is 'they'?

Jones01

Has anyone who's filled in the online form head anything back from SP yet about a refund? I only sent them my details 2 weeks ago so not expecting to hear for at least another couple of weeks but just wondering if anyone else has?

[Deleted User]

Not heard anything yet, early days...

Fingers crossed for a few quid

[Deleted User]

Just received an email from Scottish Power saying we will receive a credit of £53 to our electric account by the end of November! Every little helps! :j