Scottish Power are thieving B*******

reevetard

JJ_Egan wrote: »

You are not playing the game by switching to the more expensive standard tariff .

Indeed, standard tariff is not good and I have addressed that by moving onto a different tariff with them.........just no choice at the moment and presents the best chance of getting my credit back.

Nada666

So Scottish Power are not in error.

You changed your behaviour and did not provide this information. Scottish Power set a payment that was correct for the given usage. You subsequently decided to use a thousand pounds less per year. But no supplier is going to take your word for that - you told them when you joined you would use much more so they will, rightly, wait a year before reviewing things. (Yes, they review every three months - but that is asymmetric and they'll assume your requested quote reflects high winter use.)

No supplier is going to automatically accept your assurances that in future you will use substantially less - especially not less than half.

You chose to cancel the debit. You should now accept the higher costs.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

reevetard wrote: »

I do not consider notifying somebody over 2 months after the event and then backdating to be acceptable, neither I imagine would a court of law.

Then take them to court - it costs twentyfive pounds - refunded when you win.

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/court-fees

CashStrapped

I am not endorsing scottish power, but they have been pretty good for me up till now.

Joined back in june after my cheap edf tariff ended. My initial DD was at a level I was comfortable with. I have supplied meter readings each month on the same day my DD is taken. The online billing updates immediatly, currently in a small credit balance ready for winter.

I have also internally switched tariff, to a cheaper longer fix, twice now. They tried to reset my DD to a higher amount each time I switched, but after a quick phone call (sometimes took a while to get through) they changed it back to the DD amount I wanted.

So no problems thus far really!

On a side note reevetard:

I notice you wrote "I changed from inefficient storage heaters to oil filled radiators". Did you therefore also switch from an Economy 7 set-up?

Are you electric only on a standard electric tariff? What is your electric KWH use per day?

naedanger

reevetard wrote: »

DO NOT USE SCOTTISH POWER - EVER, EVER, EVER!!!

I joined Scottish Power as a result of an energy club email and i've had nothing but trouble since.

I switched direct from the email and was asked to pay £158 per month by DD (which seemed high) and by the beginning of August 2014 had a credit balance of nearly £500 and was still only using £50/60 per month of energy and expected only to be using £100 in winter months. The £158 a month was a significant burden for me and I needed to use the money elsewhere and so I logged into my online account and tried to alter the monthly DD amount to a lower figure, but it would only allow me to increase the amount, not decrease it!!

I tried to contact Scottish Power.....i'm not going to go into too much detail, but it took several hours waiting, over several phone calls, over a period of 3 days to actually get to speak to a customer services representative, a delay which I had never experienced anywhere before, truly unbelievable. When I did finally get through, I requested £350 to be returned to me from my credit balance and I was promised that I would receive it in my account "within 10 working days, but usually it's there quicker"........almost a month later and several more phone calls later, there's still no sign of the money and nobody knows what's going on or can tell me anything about my "missing" payment. I was now only 2 days from my next DD payment at beginning of September and I told the customer services rep that I would be cancelling my DD if my refund did not arrive as I had £hundreds of credit and did not wish to increase that amount any further as I needed it elsewhere and especially now that it seemed impossible to retrieve MY CASH back from them and so I cancelled my DD.

Yesterday I received an email in my online Scottish Power account telling me that I had now been moved to a monthly payment plan, as they had not received a DD from me, ok well that's fine with me, no more credit building up I thought.............BUT here's the punch line, they went on to say that they have put me on to their standard tariff and not only that, that they have backdated the standard tariff charges to the beginning of September on my account and taken a huge wedge of my credit balance against an "estimated bill" for the period from 1st September to 7th November based on standard rate (rates which are hugely worse than the plan I was on) despite the fact that I had added my actual readings in on 31st October.

So, not only are they not returning my credit, they are now trying to steal it from me by backdating standard tariffs on my account!! What possible reason/excuse can there be for doing this? I had £hundreds in credit in my account.

I just can't believe that a company can steal my money in this way, they appear to be above the law......what can I do??? They don't refund my money when I ask for it, then they steal it from me through backdated charges (surely this is illegal?) and there appears to be nobody that I can call to help me with this? Ofgem aren't interested and the Ombudsman says I have to follow the complaints process for 8 weeks before they can do anything....all of my bloody money will have been stolen by then!

Can anybody suggest a course of action here?

One thing I will say is that I have now seen a huge amount of reports of other people not being refunded and echoing the terrible service of Scottish Power......surely it's time that Moneysavingexpert stopped recommending people to them?

Unlike some others on this thread, I think you have been very badly treated. If SP said they would return your credit within 10 days and then did not do so, they are clearly in the wrong. Also their failure to answer the phone within a reasonable time is wrong in my view unless they made this poor service clear in their pre sales literature.

I suggest you find their official complaints process on their website and follow that until either they resolve the matter to your satisfaction or you take your complaint to the Ombudsman.

Alternatively you could take the legal option mentioned earlier, which will probably be quicker but more risky and possibly less consumer friendly.

The service standards of some energy companies, e.g. npower and it seems Scottish Power, are disgraceful in my opinion.

naedanger

Nada666 wrote: »

So Scottish Power are not in error.

...

You chose to cancel the debit. You should now accept the higher costs.

SP are in error for not doing what they promised i.e. they failed to return the credit balance they promised.

The OP cancelled the dd because he could not contact SP at all easily and they were holding on to his money in their error.

I am not saying the OP was blameless but SP were more to blame in my view than the OP.

lvf

Hello OP,

Just thought I'd drop on and give my thoughts to you. I actually work on the Customer Services team for an energy company (I'd prefer not to say which one because of the bad rep energy companies have around here lol), but I actually agree and disagree with you.

Let me explain, first, the DD can only be reviewed when your account is up to date, was there up to date meter readings provided? I can assure you that if there was not, then an estimated figure would have been used for your quarterly review, and as the estimated figure was already what was used at the beginning, then there would have been no change to your use or DD on their system.

In terms of the tariff changing, I have to agree with the other posters, You did agree to their terms, and when the DD was cancelled a term you agreed to at your tariff start date kicked in. Why it was backdated, well that one confuses me slightly, but I'm assuming (could be wrong) that the terms suggest that it will be backdated to the date of your last bill?

HOWEVER, one thing I agree with you on is the promises made. You were promised a refund and were given the appropriate timescales on this happening. A DD refund should only take 3-5 working days to arrive with you when sent, a cheque slightly longer (obviously, because of the printing and postage timeframe). As the ombudsman has informed you, you have to follow the complaints procedure before they will intervene. Because of the way they have treated you, I could see them offering a resolution before it gets to that stage. To be honest, a resolution in this case is not likely to be more than a refund of your remaining credit, any charges incurred by their service (eg overdrawn bank charges), and possibly a £25 compensation. The Ombudsman wouldn't tell them to offer any more than that other than a written apology. In future, don't ask to speak to a manager, instead say you would like to raise a complaint with their complaints or resolutions team.

Finally, if you have been switched onto their standard tariff, you wouldn't incur any exit fees for switching supplier. Energy companies are not allowed to have exit fees on the standard variable tariff, wouldn't be fair to someone who just moves into a property and is set to change supplier straight away to their favourite company, then have to pay an exit fee for that right when they were never a customer before!

SnowMan

lvf wrote: »

Let me explain, first, the DD can only be reviewed when your account is up to date, was there up to date meter readings provided? I can assure you that if there was not, then an estimated figure would have been used for your quarterly review, and as the estimated figure was already what was used at the beginning, then there would have been no change to your use or DD on their system.

Your pompous reply mixes up what SHOULD happen with what DOES happen in practice at Scottish Power.

I switched to SP in June but SP arbitrarily increased my original correctly calculated direct debit before the first payment was taken, claiming wrongly that the increase was at my own request. I contacted them by webform to ask them to revert my payment to the originally agreed amount, but they have ignored this and taken 3 payments of the higher amount, and never given any reason for the increase.

The account is not properly set-up and no consumption is showing despite me supplying opening and subsequent monthly readings. My initials on the account are showing as MR rather than my actual first name initials.

Scottish Power sent an email to me asking for a meter reading, which I provided immediately only for another email to come in 4 days later to say I hadn't provided a reading.

I have been unable to get through to them on the phone despite numerous attempts, their callback system doesn't work and they ignore web forms sent to them.

I have switched away to EDF but will be an effort to get the credit back from SP for my account (some of which was caused from Scottish Power helping themselves to extra money from my account as above). It's coming up to 4 weeks now since I switched (over 10 weeks since I complained) and not the slighest sign of anything being sorted.

So quite clearly Scottish Power DO increase direct debits when they have no idea of consumption (and even when customers have given them readings which they ignore), and Scottish Power DO falsely claim that the increase was requested by the customer.

lvf

SnowMan wrote: »

Your pompous reply mixes up what SHOULD happen with what DOES happen in practice at Scottish Power.

First of all, let me apologise, it was not intended to sound pompous. I was trying to offer insight to some possible causes. The reason why I was trying to explain was in the majority of cases, a lot of anger stems from misunderstanding. I do know this is not always the case, but to get to the bottom of it, try to leave no stone unturned, try to find out why this has happened. I did not intend to cause any offense, in fact I just wanted to help.

SnowMan wrote: »

So quite clearly Scottish Power DO increase direct debits when they have no idea of consumption

But they can if there is a justifiable reason, otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to offer DD as a payment method. Reasons can be incorrect details provided at start, a change of tariff, a failed payment beforehand, a change to the annual review date etc. Mind you, all changes should be notified at least 10 working days in advance, in writing (either email or post).

SnowMan wrote: »

(and even when customers have given them readings which they ignore), and Scottish Power DO falsely claim that the increase was requested by the customer.

If this is true, then you are right to be concerned. Take notes of every contact you have with your energy company, date/time/reason for contact. Every piece of activity leaves a footprint on your account, whether it is you online or via telephone (obviously if the advisor enters your account). Later down the line, you can present this as evidence if required, and if your record dates/times match theirs, then questions would be asked of them.

SteveE53

reevetard wrote: »

DO NOT USE SCOTTISH POWER - EVER, EVER, EVER!!!

I joined Scottish Power as a result of an energy club email and i've had nothing but trouble since.

I switched direct from the email and was asked to pay £158 per month by DD (which seemed high) and by the beginning of August 2014 had a credit balance of nearly £500 and was still only using £50/60 per month of energy and expected only to be using £100 in winter months. The £158 a month was a significant burden for me and I needed to use the money elsewhere and so I logged into my online account and tried to alter the monthly DD amount to a lower figure, but it would only allow me to increase the amount, not decrease it!!

I tried to contact Scottish Power.....i'm not going to go into too much detail, but it took several hours waiting, over several phone calls, over a period of 3 days to actually get to speak to a customer services representative, a delay which I had never experienced anywhere before, truly unbelievable. When I did finally get through, I requested £350 to be returned to me from my credit balance and I was promised that I would receive it in my account "within 10 working days, but usually it's there quicker"........almost a month later and several more phone calls later, there's still no sign of the money and nobody knows what's going on or can tell me anything about my "missing" payment. I was now only 2 days from my next DD payment at beginning of September and I told the customer services rep that I would be cancelling my DD if my refund did not arrive as I had £hundreds of credit and did not wish to increase that amount any further as I needed it elsewhere and especially now that it seemed impossible to retrieve MY CASH back from them and so I cancelled my DD.

Yesterday I received an email in my online Scottish Power account telling me that I had now been moved to a monthly payment plan, as they had not received a DD from me, ok well that's fine with me, no more credit building up I thought.............BUT here's the punch line, they went on to say that they have put me on to their standard tariff and not only that, that they have backdated the standard tariff charges to the beginning of September on my account and taken a huge wedge of my credit balance against an "estimated bill" for the period from 1st September to 7th November based on standard rate (rates which are hugely worse than the plan I was on) despite the fact that I had added my actual readings in on 31st October.

So, not only are they not returning my credit, they are now trying to steal it from me by backdating standard tariffs on my account!! What possible reason/excuse can there be for doing this? I had £hundreds in credit in my account.

I just can't believe that a company can steal my money in this way, they appear to be above the law......what can I do??? They don't refund my money when I ask for it, then they steal it from me through backdated charges (surely this is illegal?) and there appears to be nobody that I can call to help me with this? Ofgem aren't interested and the Ombudsman says I have to follow the complaints process for 8 weeks before they can do anything....all of my bloody money will have been stolen by then!

Can anybody suggest a course of action here?

One thing I will say is that I have now seen a huge amount of reports of other people not being refunded and echoing the terrible service of Scottish Power......surely it's time that Moneysavingexpert stopped recommending people to them?

I had so many problems with Scottish Power that I switched a couple of years ago. On leaving them, (mainly because they wouldn't accept that I knew my own energy use pattern, which is admittedly unusual in that I use less in winter), I had a surplus of £250. I received a notification of this which told me that I didn't need to do anything about it. I thought this was dodgy, so I got in touch and asked how they would be repaying me what was after all my money. They said they would send a cheque and when I asked what would have happened if I hadn't asked for my money, they went all coy and quiet. Wouldn't touch the "thieving b's" with a barge pole but as for anyone else, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Sorry I can't suggest a course of action but they really are a nightmare with a capital N to deal with. They seem to be able to get away with the worst kind of customer service known to man and still are allowed to run an energy providing franchise. I wish someone in a position of power would bring them to book and do us all a favour. I agree that the least that should happen is that MSE issue a "health warning" with any Scottish Power quote. I'll gladly sign any petition.