How to get money back from Scottish Power

sghughes42

We moved out from a rented property back in June. We were with Scottish Power there, having switched to them just over a year prior. The new house was with British Gas and we didn't transfer over the Scottish Power service when we moved.

Long story short, in the year we had been with them, Scottish Power had over-estimated our bill to the tune of £755. To make it worse, a little over 4 months later we are still waiting for that money back.

Firstly they took 3 weeks to produce the final bill. They promised the refund within 3 weeks by Direct Debit or 5 weeks by Cheque. The three weeks came and went, no money in my account. Another 3 weeks and no cheque so I contacted them to find out what was going on. Apparently there had been a 'technical error'... No answer as to why they hadn't noticed and sorted it out earlier... Anyway, a cheque was promised within 10 days - and of course didn't arrive. Contacted again, they would look in to why the cheque hadn't been sent. Other 10 days, another fobbing off. Every time I contact them they promise a reply within 10 days, every time they fail. The last time they replied they finally raised it as a formal complaint from me and promised they'd give a full reply in to what went wrong within 10 days. That was 15 days ago... I contacted again last week to ask why no reply and they've not even bothered to tell me they'd reply within 10 days, they've just ignored me completely.

Is there anything I can do? Apparently I can't complain to Ofgem until 8 weeks after a complaint was lodged with the power company and they managed to not consider it a complaint until 3 weeks ago so I have another 5 weeks before I can even go to the regulator.

At this rate I'm going to be £755 down for 6 months or more, not an easy amount of money to do without when you've just bought a house! Even if I could spare it I'd prefer the interest to be in my bank not theirs....

Any suggestions at all?

SnowMan

Your only option really is to take it to the Energy Ombudsman after 8 weeks.

I've found it impossible to get through to Scottish Power on the phone and 3 months after I sent in a formal complaint I've not had any response other than a letter to say they were too busy to respond.

However Scottish Power did have time to ring me up to try and persuade me not to switch, after I switched to another supplier. When I mentioned I had an outstanding complaint, it was clear they didn't want to talk about that and ended the call. I also received a letter from Scottish Power suggesting some tariffs I could switch to rather than moving away. That they have time to make marketing calls and send marketing correspondence to me but no time to deal with my complaint says it all.

Scottish Power aren't remotely interested in providing a service to existing customers or in dealing with complaints.

From my own experience Scottish Power should have their license taken off them. At the very least they should be stopped from taking on any new customers.

My complaint is with the Energy Ombudsman at the moment.

Hoof_Hearted

My limited experience of the Ombudsman is not very favourable. If you have good evidence, go to small claims and get legal redress. It is cheap and painless.

sghughes42

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

My limited experience of the Ombudsman is not very favourable. If you have good evidence, go to small claims and get legal redress. It is cheap and painless.

Sorry for taking a while to reply to this, the forum keeps timing out when I try and reply...

I did look in to money claim online but they seemed to suggest I had to wait for all complaints processes to run their course, so that means I'll have to wait another 4 weeks for Scottish Power then however long the ombudsman takes.

Is that correct, or can I put a claim in now? I think I have pretty good proof - a message from Scottish Power themselves saying they owe me the money!

Hoof_Hearted

I think you have to show you have made a reasonable attempt to recoup the money and you have lodged a complaint. The Ombudsman is really a side issue. It takes them six to eight weeks anyway, but if you are near the end of this with the Ombudsman, it may be worth waiting a little longer to see if they can resolve it.

sghughes42

No, due to the way SP 'worked the system' we can't go to the ombudsman for another 4 weeks. They didn't actually log it as a complaint initially so it only counts as being 4 weeks in despite it actually being well over 8 weeks since we originally complained about this...

One thing I was wondering, if we take this to court and pay the fee to do so and SP in the meanwhile send us a cheque does this mean we lose our court fee? Indeed, do we get it awarded as costs if we win or do you lose it no matter what the result? And would the court 'win' only be for the amount owed or might we get a bit extra to cover the inconvenience and overdraft fees we have incurred by being this far out of pocket?

Not exactly going great with our new supplier, British Gas either... 4 months in and we are already well over £200 in credit. I know we have winter coming up but I'm convinced they have over-estimated the direct debit by 50% or more... I am starting to think the discount for paying DD isn't worth having so much of my money tied up for so long.