scottish power switched me to standard online tariff for no valid reason!

andrew-b

Out of the blue Scottish power sent me an email with link to online message. Message says

Your ScottishPower Direct Debit arrangement for your gas and electricity has been cancelled
Your bank has not made the recent Direct Debit payment we requested. The reason they gave is "Instruction Cancelled by Payer".
Because we haven’t been able to collect your payments by Direct Debit, inaccordance with the terms of your agreement, we’re changing your energy account to our Quarterly Cash Plan. This gives you a wider range of ways to
pay.

I was previously on "ONLINE FIXED PRICE ENERGY MARCH 2015".

Recent direct debit paid on 27th October. Bank confirm the direct debit is active.

It's been one thing after another since i've been at scottish power and i'm sick of chasing the problems they've caused.

Of course i have to wait over an hour for a callback!
This company are a complete joke and best avoided!

I'm tempted just to call it a day and use this as an opportunity to escape the fixed price deal early! My only concern is if i'll get the Warm Home Discount at the new company i goto.

redux

I'd be tempted to try switching it again online, to December 2015, though I suppose you might as well wait for your chat first.

This has the extra advantage of no exit penalty if you do get too fed up.

I did that recently, and was a bit alarmed they didn't request any DD money in October, so either the change was too close to the date, or the same message as you have might be on its way here shortly.

bb1942

Hi Andrew. I have been with SP for quite a while and had no problems but I have just changed tariff and they have got the payments wrong. The phone line is shut and I couldn't get a callback anytime today! So much for their 'improving' their service to cope with the influx of new customers!

Spoke to nice callback lady at 12.05. Refunded £260 credit, new payments £43. I think that may change but it's a start!

andrew-b

Well they were still claiming my direct debit had been cancelled by me but wanted to put me on the more expensive december 2015 tariff. I held my ground as whilst i want to leave when i can i don't see why i should have to pay more than the cheaper tariff i was already on.

As i was getting nowhere i asked to speak to supervisor..after a bit of arguing he agreed then i waited and the same guy came back (not the supervisor!) saying he'd put me back on March 2015 tariff i was already on.

When i then checked through the direct debit he had details of my previous smile bank account and my current account which i now use. The smile bank account was closed in April when i did an account switch yet they've had no problem until now taking direct debits from the nationwide account i switched to since.

Another thing i noticed was it's happened on the anniversary of the switch (i was previously scottish power customer and switched to a better deal on 7th November 2013).

My online account at scottish power though has now lost my 4 bills for 2014 so now it looks like i'm over £900 in credit (i should be £82 in credit!). Luckily i've kept downloaded versions of them all and keep a spreadsheet.

As to getting the call back it wouldn't work online. I wasn't offered it the first time i called but my call got dropped. Second time i was offered the call back.

They seem to just be getting worse and worse. Goodness knows how many hours of my life i've wasted in the last year sorting out problems they've created. There were about 4 months i had to keep phoning up because they weren't taking payments - kept saying they had sorted it but kept not sorting it! Then they incorrectly billed me using an estimated reading that was far overestimated. I've also had issues in the past with warm home discount with them that took months to resolve!

hufc2002

I thought the December 2015 tariff was cheaper?

I am currently on the March 2015 tariff and was looking to switch to the December 2015 however not sure if I have to pay any exit fees.

footyguy

andrew-b wrote: »

Out of the blue Scottish power sent me an email with link to online message. Message says

Your ScottishPower Direct Debit arrangement for your gas and electricity has been cancelled
Your bank has not made the recent Direct Debit payment we requested. The reason they gave is "Instruction Cancelled by Payer".
Because we haven’t been able to collect your payments by Direct Debit, inaccordance with the terms of your agreement, we’re changing your energy account to our Quarterly Cash Plan. This gives you a wider range of ways to pay.

I was previously on "ONLINE FIXED PRICE ENERGY MARCH 2015".

Recent direct debit paid on 27th October. Bank confirm the direct debit is active.

It's been one thing after another since i've been at scottish power and i'm sick of chasing the problems they've caused.

Of course i have to wait over an hour for a callback!
This company are a complete joke and best avoided!

I'm tempted just to call it a day and use this as an opportunity to escape the fixed price deal early! My only concern is if i'll get the Warm Home Discount at the new company i goto.

Misleading thread title alert!

They have given you a valid reason and you've even posted it.

If you don't agree with the explanation, contact the supplier & discuss.

andrew-b

After another very long wait (40+minutes!) i got back to them. Basically they've cancelled all my bills since 2nd December 2013 as they had reverted me to standard tariff back to the 31st December 2013. So now having reverted me back to the tariff i should never have been taken off they have to reconstruct the account for me bill at a time. I've provided latest readings and they phoned me back once they'd worked it all out.

I don't quite understand why they ever thought the direct debit was cancelled in the first place but it seems to all be sorted now but it's taken me much of the day to sort out.

footyguy

andrew-b wrote: »

Well they were still claiming my direct debit had been cancelled by me but wanted to put me on the more expensive december 2015 tariff. I held my ground as whilst i want to leave when i can i don't see why i should have to pay more than the cheaper tariff i was already on.

As i was getting nowhere i asked to speak to supervisor..after a bit of arguing he agreed then i waited and the same guy came back (not the supervisor!) saying he'd put me back on March 2015 tariff i was already on.

When i then checked through the direct debit he had details of my previous smile bank account and my current account which i now use. The smile bank account was closed in April when i did an account switch yet they've had no problem until now taking direct debits from the nationwide account i switched to since.

Another thing i noticed was it's happened on the anniversary of the switch (i was previously scottish power customer and switched to a better deal on 7th November 2013).

My online account at scottish power though has now lost my 4 bills for 2014 so now it looks like i'm over £900 in credit (i should be £82 in credit!). Luckily i've kept downloaded versions of them all and keep a spreadsheet.

As to getting the call back it wouldn't work online. I wasn't offered it the first time i called but my call got dropped. Second time i was offered the call back.

They seem to just be getting worse and worse. Goodness knows how many hours of my life i've wasted in the last year sorting out problems they've created. There were about 4 months i had to keep phoning up because they weren't taking payments - kept saying they had sorted it but kept not sorting it! Then they incorrectly billed me using an estimated reading that was far overestimated. I've also had issues in the past with warm home discount with them that took months to resolve!

So you discussed it, or rather argued it with the supplier.

So it turns out the supplier was correct in that the bank did reject the direct debit collection

What I don't understand now is that you say your current bank (not the account the supplier attempted to collect a direct debit payment from) actually paid out a direct debit to the supplier. Why was that? :huh:

andrew-b

umm how's it misleading? They claimed i'd cancelled the direct debit which i hadn't. They haven't given a definite valid reason at all. I switched bank account in april and the direct debit was changed then and payments were being credited to my account without issue. Even if a direct debit hadn't been taken surely a warning should be issued before switching to the standard tariff and !!!!!!ing up the whole account.

Actually yes the december 2015 tariff would save me £29 a year so i hold my hands up that I got that bit wrong...it's barely worth it for me though as once i have got my £140 warm home discount i will be leaving when i can do so anyway. If i left now i would not get the Warm home discount at another company for this year.

redux

hufc2002 wrote: »

I thought the December 2015 tariff was cheaper?

I am currently on the March 2015 tariff and was looking to switch to the December 2015 however not sure if I have to pay any exit fees.

They waive exit fees if you are staying with them. I recently swapped free from February to December.

By the way the latter has no exit fee, so it could be a ploy for people who want to leave.

And yes, I thought it would be slightly cheaper. Gas and electric units went one up one down slightly, but the standing charges are lower.