Scottish power direct debit

Stevefromdonny

SP sent me an email bill this morning with a cover note saying that my direct debit was staying the same (£107) as they had looked at my predicted useage for the next 12 months. In the same email at the end of the bill, they broke down my useage over the next 12 months, worked out at £971. Divided by 12 this is £81. And I had built up a credit of about £320 at the current bill. I had a condensing boiler fitted 2 years ago and combined with the mild winter, our useage has been much lower than previously.

I got on the phone and the advisor asked me what I wanted to pay as my DD. This is a new one on me! I told him £81, which he did for me, no arguement. Then again, they seem incapable of working out my direct debit so perhaps best I tell them what I ought to be paying . . .

I also asked him to refund me the £320 I had accumulated. He told me that this had already been done! Sure enough when I checked the online account it had been reset to zero. They had just neglected to tell me this in writing anywhere! And as it takes several days for that to hit my bank account, if I hadn't phoned up I would have been left wondering where that money had gone . . .

I'd rather underpay than overpay, given in my account it is earning me interest not them! And I always have a decent balance in my bank if they need to put the payments up again.

Froglet

My mum runs her account online,but i do it all for her as she is elderly and does not have a computer.Like you she was quite a bit in credit before the annual review.There is a section on SP's website that lets you change your direct debit,for a small card payment, it is on a sliding scale,depends on what you want to reduce the amount to.

There is also a help section which explains that at the review if you are more than one month's amount in credit,it will automatically be refunded.That is exactly what happened with my Mum,and the money appeared in her account a few days later.

So for all the complaints about SP,(and i have some as well even though i encouraged her to sign up with them 2 years ago!) they do seem to at least be fair about the credit side of things.

Ms_Chocaholic

A similar thing happened to me at the beginning of December, I was paying £116 pm and had built up a credit balance. I rang to ask if the DD could be adjusted (lowered) and got the shock of my life when the adviser told me that was no problem and they said the lowest they could go was £50. As it was early December I opted to reduce the DDs but not as low as that.

When I initially rang I expected there to be a problem asking for it to be reduced as I'd had problems in the past, good on you Scottish Power.

Stevefromdonny

I suppose its not really a problem for them if we underpay, since they can increase the DD again next month if they see fit, but they would rather the accounts be in credit, since then it earns them interest. This is why they are reluctant to reduce the DD amounts, but do refund the credit balances when they get stupid. Mine has been in credit by £350+ for about 4 months (but didn't complain as winter was on the way). I suppose they calculate your likely consumption over winter and keep you a safe amount in credit until Feb-March (when if they have done their sums right and the weather has been right, you will have zero balance!).