Scottish Power Issuing bills for Households with Pre-Payment meters

Ashmaniac

Hi All,

I am having issues with Scottish Power, and let me tell you I'm getting extremely steamed over it.

I am, and always have been, on a pre payment meter since I lived at my current address for the past 3+ years. About a year ago however Scottish Power sent me a bill for £88.44. I rang them about this and they told me that they would launch an internal investigation about this as I shouldn't be getting charged a single penny.

A week or so later we were told that the problem was with the fact that we had switched from EDF, who had supplied an estimated reading on switching, and they themselves, who have never sent out a meter reader since we have been with them, had gone on their own estimate hence the discrepency.

Anyway I was told not to worry about it as they would credit my account enough to level it of at £0.

Now I have started college and am only home a couple of days a month.

However at the start of this year they sent out a letter, with a new pre-payment card, saying that they were sorry to see me go and that we could still use them when I move into my new home. I haven't moved anywhere! So I called them again and informed them about this and the operator said that they would look into it, but even he was confused as to why this was happening.

When he called back he said that I was to just carry on using my current pre-payment card and just discard the new one that they sent. I said ok fine and thought that was the end of the matter. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I have come home this month to a bill from Scottish Power (again!) saying " You have recently moved home and have an outstanding bill of £88.44 with Scottish Power. Please pay this now.

Not having chance to respond yet I then received another letter TODAY from Past Due Credit Solutions demanding that we owe Scottish Power this money and that they have now added charges to it bringing it up to £116.74 owed. This is well out of line in my opinion and I am wondering whether this is also illegal?

I haven't had chance to call them yet as the snail mail didn't get here until after 1 PM and that is when their phone lines close on Saturdays.

So I was wondering what should I do? I'm not wrong here am I? This is surely an issue between my previous supplier EDF, and Scottish Power as the discrepancy lies there, or so they have told me before.

Please help, I want to go in with all the facts when I call them on Monday morning before I go back to college.

This is an obvious mistake that has been repeatedly brought back up dispite me sorting it out multiple times and it is causing me lots of distress. Please help!

Thanks in advance,

Ash

Ashmaniac

Forgot to add, I sent them an e-mail and have received the automated response saying they'll be in contact in the next 5 days. I won't hold my breath though, after reading the posts on here it seems they don't EVER reply.

Help urgently needed please.

Froglet

Ash do you actually have a meter in your house which gives readings or just a prepayment one,with no figures? If the latter then you cannot be paying a bill that they have invented when you have never input any figures!!

I also assume with prepayment there is no standing charge you just literally put in the money as needed?

I am told there is an email address which escalates problems,and gets then dealt with.Try [EMAIL="social@scottishpower.co.uk"]social@scottishpower.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Nada666

Froglet wrote: »

I also assume with prepayment there is no standing charge you just literally put in the money as neede?

(There are standing charges with prepayment meters - don't think that is the issue here.)

It is perfectly possible to create a debt on transferring tariffs between companies on a prepayment meter if the readings used do not correspond.

Ashmaniac

Froglet wrote: »

Ash do you actually have a meter in your house which gives readings or just a prepayment one,with no figures? If the latter then you cannot be paying a bill that they have invented when you have never input any figures!!

I also assume with prepayment there is no standing charge you just literally put in the money as needed?

I am told there is an email address which escalates problems,and gets then dealt with.Try [EMAIL="social@scottishpower.co.uk"]social@scottishpower.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Thanks I'll try that e-mail see if it helps at all.

Nada666 wrote: »

(There are standing charges with prepayment meters - don't think that is the issue here.)

It is perfectly possible to create a debt on transferring tariffs between companies on a prepayment meter if the readings used do not correspond.

That is exactly what happened. I went through this with them before and last time, early last year as I mentioned before, they explained that is was a mistake and was because of a discrepency between my Pre-payment account with EDF's final reading and my Pre-payment account with Scottish Power's first reading. This despite neither company ever performing a meter reading at my property nor ever asking me for one. After some checking on their part they said that they would just credit my account to bring it back to where I don't owe them anything as they couldn't quite figure out exactly what had happened, as should be when on pre-payment. If anyone owes them money it's EDF as they're the only two who would have the money for Gas which I had already paid for at the shop. It's like being double billed. :mad::mad:

Oh I should also add that when we joined them it was on their promise to install credit meters for free with bill payments, after we had been with them for a year, which was a big influence in us joining them in the first place . After a year however we asked them about their promise to us and they said we would have to pay £360 for installation, despite our previous agreement. Pack of liars if you ask me, plain and simple.

The main problem this time is that because of some MASSIVE computer glitch, they seem to think I have moved house when I quite clearly haven't in the last 3 years. I already spoke to an operator of Scottish Power about this in January, and he said to just ignore any messages about this, and carry on using my current Gas Card and not the new one that they sent with the "Moving House" message. He didn't really have a clue as to what had happened.

I did as they asked and now I'm getting letters from a debt collection agency. Which is going to probably have already damaged my credit rating some what.

I personally think they are chasing it because they removed that credit from last year as soon as they thought I was moving house and maybe they also thought I was changing supplier, which I wasn't on both fronts.

Personally I think that this should be considered as BLACKMAIL. ie. Stay and we forget about the glitched bill we sent earlier, but try and leave and our memory will return and cancel the credit and send in the bailiffs.:mad::mad::mad:

Ashmaniac

E-mail sent but I'm just getting replies saying FAILURE and that Scottish powers server is rejecting my e-mail's or something. You sure that e-mail address is correct Froglet?

Froglet

Ashmaniac wrote: »

E-mail sent but I'm just getting replies saying FAILURE and that Scottish powers server is rejecting my e-mail's or something. You sure that e-mail address is correct Froglet?

I am sorry,Ash it was from memory.It is .com,not co.uk this is the post i got it from it also has an email address for complaints.

"I've just posted about this on a related thread; I've sent a complaint email to [EMAIL="customer.services@scottishpower.co.uk"]customer.services@scottishpower.co.uk[/EMAIL], the address provided on the Scottish Power website that comes up when you google "scottish power complaint". I also cc'd it to [EMAIL="social@scottishpower.com"]social@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] which another mse forum member posted in that thread, saying that people had had some success with that email address. So I tried both!
I switched from EDF to SP and the switch was completed on 30 October 2013. I submitted my final readings on 01 November. By 16 December I still hadn't had a final bill or a refund despite my account being £142 in credit so I called SP and was told I'd receive a final bill and refund by the end of the month. I got a final bill on 24th December (though it wasn't sent to me, I just found it by logging into my account) based on an *estimated* final reading. I spent an hour on hold this evening trying to get through to SP customer services, and finally gave up and wrote the complaint email instead. I said that if I don't receive a refund within 14 days I'll make a formal complaint to the Ombudsman! "

Ashmaniac

Froglet wrote: »

I am sorry,Ash it was from memory.It is .com,not co.uk this is the post i got it from it also has an email address for complaints.

"I've just posted about this on a related thread; I've sent a complaint email to [EMAIL="customer.services@scottishpower.co.uk"]customer.services@scottishpower.co.uk[/EMAIL], the address provided on the Scottish Power website that comes up when you google "scottish power complaint". I also cc'd it to [EMAIL="social@scottishpower.com"]social@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] which another mse forum member posted in that thread, saying that people had had some success with that email address. So I tried both!

Thanks Froglet, e-mail sent to the socail one and no failure e-mail this time. Had already sent it to customer services. Now its a waiting game I guess.