Reducing DD - Do I have a case?

jonny2510

I submitted my latest readings online, and a day later (I don't know if this is coincidence) Scottish Power emailed me to inform me my monthly direct debit is going up from £50 to £71.

That's £852 per year.

I should point out at this stage that I am £40 in debit at the mo with them.

Just calcuated last 12 months usage on the house, and worked out what it would cost at Scottish Power's current rates, and have worked it out at £ 362.15 for gas, and £276.07 for electricity (£638.22 per year, or £53.19 p/m). Even factoring in the £40 I owe them, it should only come to £56.52.

Do you think I have
a) a case?
b) a chance?

in asking them to reduce the direct debit to say £55, or even £60, otherwise I risk being in credit almot £200 at the end of the year!

Cardew

I think that if you present you case as above you will have no problem in getting the DD set to the level you wish.

One note of caution; are you sure that the debit balance is £40? Bear in mind that the £50 is credited to your account each month. e.g you could have been £90 in debit 2 days ago and yesterday's £50 credit reduced that to £40.

When I look at my account on-line my credit balance increases each month(giving a false picture) and the debit(for the gas.electricity) is only applied quarterly.

SuiDreams

When I got my reassessment from SP in February I was £200 in Debt with them and the DD they sent me was really High. I paid off the £200 and they reduced my Monthly DD by more than 200/12. I have since reduced my DD further as I am building up quite a bit of credit already. I have been submitting monthly readings to keep better track of my payments and the amount of Gas/Electic that I am using.

jonny2510

Cardew wrote: »

One note of caution; are you sure that the debit balance is £40? Bear in mind that the £50 is credited to your account each month. e.g you could have been £90 in debit 2 days ago and yesterday's £50 credit reduced that to £40.

Well, it was £40 in debit, payment goes out on 7th of the month, and this was calcualted I think on the 16th.

Maybe I should wait until the day after my payment is taken out (coincidently a year to the day we moved in) to get an exact balance???

jonny2510

Well I just spoke to (helpfull bloke at) Scottish Power, who recalucalted the DD to £65 ish.

Told him my figures etc, and he calculated it to be £58 with what I owe, but said the lowest his system would let him do is £60, without having to go and investigate it further / get it approved.

Decided to go with that rather than waste any more time on it...


I must say it's a pleasure to deal with the poeple at Scottish Power ranther than the normal levels of service you get in these call centres!

Thanks for the replies everyone