Letter from Scottish Power saying we owe them money???

Twister17

I got a letter through the post from Scottish Power who were supplying our gas up until a month or so ago when we switched to a cheaper company. It says we owe them £700, but I don't understand how this could be as we are on pre-payment meters, we used the emergency credit feature a few times but it was always repaid along with any owed standing charge when we next topped up.

The account is in my partner's name so I'm waiting for him to call them from work to see what they say because we have no idea how this amount of money could have built up, we're pretty sure there has been some kind of mistake.

Has this happened to anyone else and if so how did you deal with it?

brewerdave

Were you on an old style prepay meter??If so its possible that the tariffs have not been updated for a long time and you haven't been paying the correct amount for either daily standing charge or unit cost. HOWEVER, to build up to £700 must have been for several years!!!

good_advice

Good morning

Did you change fuel supplier @ end of contract time?
To change before the contract ends you will have paid £50 to leave SP.

Twister17

That's the thing, we were only with them for a year or so. We moved in in January Last year, before this I lived with my parents. I was originally with Npower but switched shortly after to Scottish Power as they were cheaper, then recently switched again as they were increasing their prices and other companies were cheaper. I don't know what type of prepay meter we have, I just assumed they were all the same *shrug*

I was never made aware of having to pay any fees to switch and I don't think our 'contract' had a set date to end or anything, they knew we were switching and called a few times to get us to stay and never once mentioned a fee.

From where I'm standing it's impossible that we owe this money.

JJ_Egan

If you switched before a contract expired then their is often a penalty as you are breaking a valid contract .
Depends upon what tariff you where on if you are due to pay a penalty so check that first .
With 3 suppliers and the information you posted its almost certainly a case of not reading the terms and conditions when signing up/ cancelling .

Twister17

There has been no mention from Scottish Power of a penalty for switching before the contract expired, they would have said something to us by now surely, via a letter or on the phone? If there was a penalty, it wouldn't be £700?? That is excessive.

My partner spoke to them today, they are 'querying' it for us. I will dig out the contract stuff and see if there is an expiry date.

ETA: Just looked at all our Scottish Power stuff, no mention of a contract expiry date and no mention of any fees for switching suppliers.

JJ_Egan

No end date sounds like a standard tariff price contract that is always expensive .
But without knowing the tariff its all guesswork .

dogshome

You are certainly entitled to more detail on this debt that just a demand letter
However £700 is a huge amount as an extra charge on the monies already paid, but it would be explained if you had continued to use the meter Top-up card supplied by n'power, and not the new one supplied by Scot Power.

If this is the case, your payments have been piling up a big credit with n'power whilst SP haven't had any money for the gas they supplied, which they would have only realised when they got the meter readings from your 3rd Switch

Twister17

It's just their standard prepayment tariff, I think they only have the one for prepayment meters.

We used the Scottish Power top up card from the day the tariff started and followed all the instructions given as far as I'm aware (i.e putting the new card in the meter before putting credit on it etc).