£50 Compensation offer?

dablondi

Summary version of a Supplier switch gone wrong:
Scottish Power advised a "System error" prevented them from correctly closing my Electric account when I switched from them to a new supplier on Oct 31st 2014.
The account (monthly DD) was £450+ in credit at the time. Many (many!) calls later, raised a complaint, SP repeatedly failed to respond in 10 w/day timeframe and continued to try and take DD payments.
Called SP today (8 Jan 2015) requesting deadlock letter and advising I plan to refer matter to EO. Amazingly, in 45 mins receive call back to advise acct now closed, final elec bill paid, refund cheque for remaining acct credit of £375 :T in post!!!


Now.....SP have admitted (in writing) they have failed to deliver and also provided shoddy customer service. Compensation offer of £20 was quickly upped to £50 once rejected. Based on the numerous calls made, time spent (well over 8hrs), financial hardship at the retained credit amount and stress caused, I feel this should be higher.


I know I could go to EO but other threads on here seem to suggest its a waste of time and anyway £100 is about the max. Is Small Claims the way to go? Anybody any experience of taking on the Energy boys and winning? Or do I take my £50 and let the Energy companies sit on their £Bn profits!!!

energyworker

£50 for 8 hours "work" doesn't seem like that bad an offer. Ridiculous though it sounds 2 months isn't that out of the ordinary to close an account. There is every chance that they were delayed in receiving closing readings from your new supplier or that these were delayed in transit.

I don't know on what basis you would propose going to the small claims court. The ombudsman is not likely to improve on the £50 offer, average ombudsman award sits around that level. For instance a customer I encountered today had endured a 10 month billing issue that resulted in all manner of hardship, ombudsman awarded £75.

I'm not saying that its right, but realistically it is all that you are likely to get.

dablondi

Appreciate the reply and your insight into compensations offered to
others. £50 for 8hrs - I spent a long time learning a trade so I could earn more than £6.25 an hour. All the time I spent chasing SP was time I wasn't earning! The issue was all down to SP, valid meter readings were provided and confirmed by SP on 31 Oct. As I said, SP have admitted full responsibility for the shambles! (This was a dual fuel acct and the Gas acct was closed by 1 Nov without any drama). I admit this is about getting SP to stump up some cash but there is also a principle here. The more we sit back and accept the incompetent and unapologetic behaviour of these major companies the more it will become the norm. SP made a profit of £712m in 2013 and are allowed to flagrantly disregard the regulatory conditions they are required to operate under. With profits like that, when they make a mistake they should be big enough and man enough to say sorry and match the apology with a meaningful level of compensation. Maybe then they would strive to make less errors and give customers the service they deserve.

System

If you can prove that you actually spent 8 hours trying to resolve this issue (i.e.; you have an itemised telephone bill showing minutes spent on the phone, e-mails exchanged etc) then take SP to the Small Claims Court. If not, then I would suggest that £50 is not a derisory level of compensation. Look at it another way, £50 interest on £450 over two months equals 66% annual interest on the money owed.

The OFGEM rules on switching require a supplier to take “all reasonable steps” to send a final bill within six weeks of a customer switching suppliers showing anything that is owed.

dablondi

Hengus wrote: »

If you can prove that you actually spent 8 hours trying to resolve this issue (i.e.; you have an itemised telephone bill showing minutes spent on the phone, e-mails exchanged etc) then take SP to the Small Claims Court. If not, then I would suggest that £50 is not a derisory level of compensation. Look at it another way, £50 interest on £450 over two months equals 66% annual interest on the money owed.

The OFGEM rules on switching require a supplier to take “all reasonable steps” to send a final bill within six weeks of a customer switching suppliers showing anything that is owed.

Hengus - I do have records of all calls and should I decide to go SCC route would also hope to obtain the call recordings from SP. You are right in that £50 does appear a reasonable return based on the money owed. It does not however, begin to compare to the "loss of earnings". Time is a very valuable (and non renewable) commodity - if I called out a SP engineer to fix a problem and somehow kept him waiting for 8 hours before allowing him to fix the problem - Do you think SP would be willing to accept £50 for the inconvenience I had caused. I doubt it, more likely it would be £50 (if not more) for each hour that was wasted!


My OP was a genuine request to see if anyone had any experience of taking SP to SCC for this sort of thing. I appreciate I am now well and truly on the soap box and sounding more and more like a grumpy old man :mad:with each post.


I am a firm believer in "fairness". SP have performed disgracefully IMO. They make £Ms profit a year and when a supposedly, government regulated industry supplier gets it wrong, the customer should not be the one having to fight to get a fair and reasonable level of compensation.

naedanger

dablondi wrote: »

I am a firm believer in "fairness". SP have performed disgracefully IMO. They make £Ms profit a year and when a supposedly, government regulated industry supplier gets it wrong, the customer should not be the one having to fight to get a fair and reasonable level of compensation.

If you are self employed and can demonstrate you lost financially as a result of SP's service failures then I think you should consider the SCC route.

If not then I would follow their complaints process, including taking your case to the Ombudsman, as this costs nothing and should take very little extra time.

dablondi

[QUOTE=Hengus;67416145
The OFGEM rules on switching require a supplier to take “all reasonable steps” to send a final bill within six weeks of a customer switching suppliers showing anything that is owed.[/QUOTE]

Just re-checked my e-mails and it depends how you interpret "within six weeks of a customer switching suppliers" - is this when the switch is requested or when the final meter readings are accepted? Either way, the switch was initiated on Sep 7th, it is now Jan 9th (I make that around 19 weeks!!!) or best case scenario readings provided 31 Oct makes it 11 weeks.

dablondi

naedanger wrote: »

If you are self employed and can demonstrate you lost financially as a result of SP's service failures then I think you should consider the SCC route.

If not then I would follow their complaints process, including taking your case to the Ombudsman, as this costs nothing and should take very little extra time.

naedanger - Cheers for the support however my confidence in EO is somewhat dented having read the thread here (sorry can't post as a link)
{change to http://} forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5113496&highlight=energy+ombudsman


and others saying a similar thing.

System

dablondi wrote: »

Just re-checked my e-mails and it depends how you interpret "within six weeks of a customer switching suppliers" - is this when the switch is requested or when the final meter readings are accepted? Either way, the switch was initiated on Sep 7th, it is now Jan 9th (I make that around 19 weeks!!!) or best case scenario readings provided 31 Oct makes it 11 weeks.

Now I am confused. When did your switch actually go through? This is not the same date, necessarily as the date on which you provided meter readings. If the switch went through on the 31st of October then, under OFGEM rules, the supplier should have taken 'reasonable steps' to provide you with a Final Bill by the 11th December. It doesn't follow that it actually has to re-pay you by this date. Clearly, something has gone wrong administratively but, imho, SP has offered what most people would think was a reasonable amount of compensation. The fact that you spent 8 hours on the phone etc may not convince a Court if it feels that a strong letter of complaint was all that was needed for what, on the face of it, was nothing more than a 4 week delay in repayment. I know that it shouldn't take this long but it has been posted on this forum that power companies have an escalating process of repayment approvals. One company representative said that amounts of over £500 will take up to 28 days!

I am not for a moment saying that the switching system is perfect but until we all get Smart meters that can talk to all suppliers then the system of switching will continue to be problematical. That said, I am no fan of Smart Meters per se.

naedanger

dablondi wrote: »

naedanger - Cheers for the support however my confidence in EO is somewhat dented having read the thread here (sorry can't post as a link)
{change to http://} forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5113496&highlight=energy+ombudsman


and others saying a similar thing.

I am not a great fan of the Energy Ombudsman and I don't think they will significantly increase your offer. (But I think things would be even worse if there was no ombudsman.) However the service is free to use and in my view it is better to complain to them than do nothing. At least your complaint will be heard and formally registered.

If you can demonstrate you suffered a financial loss then I think the SCC would be more likely to compensate you for the financial loss. But I believe they are unlikely to offer much for inconvenience, hassle, loss of your personal time etc. Had the service been so bad as to result in harassment then again you should consider the SCC route.

Personally I think what is needed is fixed levels of compensation (along the lines of some other industries e.g air travel) for bad service e.g. £x for each weeks delay in switching supply or £y for each weeks delay issuing a due bill etc then we would see service standard improve (obviously excluding any delays where the customer is at least partly to blame).

dablondi

Hengus - You are right, I should think myself lucky it was only 4 weeks after the regulatory maximum period that SP finally decided to return my money. I am sure they would have gladly let this roll on for several more months had I not been badgering them to get it sorted.


I only posted for some info but instead it seems I should:
a. Be thankful this didn't take even longer
b. Be grateful they offered the compensation they did


(This is the type of spirit that puts the Great in Britain)


However, it appears there are many others like me who do not see it that way. Having just read some of the posts on the thread below (sorry, still can't post links) its clear Scottish Power have some serious issues to get sorted out

MSE_Helen wrote: »

Scottish Power is facing a ban on sales activity unless it must meet tough targets Ofgem has set...

Ofgem orders Scottish Power to shape up or stop selling