DD guarantee and disputes

lisyloo

There is (or was) a £25 credit on my gas account and approx £500 (disputed) bill.

I naively thought the banks would be the experts on their mechanisms (section 75, cashback, dd indemnity) and would advise me correctly when I have an issue. I didn't realise that as a customer I needed to be an expert.
So it seems an invalid claim for £25 has gone through.
SP might ask for it back or because they are so incompetent they might not meet any deadlines to make a claim. If I were a betting man I'd go for the latter.
All I wanted was to get it sorted and I thought that would do the trick.
However It looks to me that I can't just forget about it and the least risk thing for me to do is to ask the energy ombudsman to decide and that should avoid defaults or court action.

lisyloo

BTW I did get a new bill which removed the £25 credit.

i am not reading anything into that because it's probably automatic.

meer53

If you're disputing the amount they say they owe you, the bank won't get involved in that, it's between you and the energy provider. If there is a dispute about a DD payment, and the payment has been taken incorrectly, then the bank will help you.

grumbler

lisyloo wrote: »

The link I googled said something like "a regulated credit agreement under the Consumer Credit Act".
I don't believe I have a credit agreement with Scottish Power for my gas and nothing on my Experian, Equifax or Call credit credit files.
I do have a credit agreement with my contract mobile provider.

Mobile contracts certainly are not regulated by the CCA (except recent O2 'refresh' and similar contracts).
This has never stopped mobile providers from routinely trashing credit histories even in disputed cases.

A default can only happen with a credit agreement right?

Wrong - AFAIK - at least for your definition of 'credit agreement'.

lisyloo

Sorry if it hasn't been clear.
The £25 credit on my gas account which was originally paid by DD has been claimed back by the bank. I agree this may be not a valid claim both because I mis-understood and the bank didn't give two hoots so it may get claimed back. If that happens I won't be in any worse position.
My guess is that Scottish power will just knock it off my account and adjust the bill (already done).

The recent £500 bill has not been paid and is being disputed directly with Scottish power and will go to the ombudsman shortly although I will give SP 7 days to reply (that's how long they gave me to consider their response).
My understanding is that whilst that process is going on there shouldn't be any court case or trashing of credit files and that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Will update when there is any news but I'm confident I have a good case, SP are either fobbing me off or the people I'm dealing with don't understand the rules properly.

SeduLOUs

In the meantime make absolutely sure there are no active direct debits on your bank account so they can't take any money from your account again until the situation is resolved.

lisyloo

UPDATE:
Complaint raised with ombudsman 22/4.
No response from Scottish Power on complaint raised in December 2014.
No comeback on DD claim (account and bill adjusted by Scottish Power).

lisyloo

UPDATE: I didn't win my case - basically because although I'd not been billed correctly I'd still been billed, but I have been offered £100 as a gesture of goodwill because of Scottish Power being useless. I'm fairly happy with that.
I didn't get any DD guarantee reclaim or anything bad on my credit report.

Thanks for all the help as I learnt a few things :-)