Scottish Power outrage!

Star_NCB

I have been a customer with Scottish Power since moving into a house in July 2014. Confirmation of Agreed Direct debits of £134.77 received in August 2014. Payments been taken each month. A meter reader has called every two months. Never had a bill. Last Monday, when I logged onto my bank account, Scottish Power had taken a payment of £440.00.
When I rang them, I was told that I was in arrears and this would be my new monthly payment!
I had received no notification that they would be doing this. I explained that I am a single parent on benefits and was told to phone my bank and make an indemnity claim but that it would increase my debt. I told them that, at a push, I could manage £200.00. They agreed to this and put me on a new tariff - from Standard to Help Beat Cancer Fixed Price Energy to November 2017 Online.
I can now see my account online.
Bill dates shown:
August 2014: £82.56
Feb 2015: £1,051.68
April: £328.61
May: £357.16
August £350.37
September: £137.99 (for 2 weeks)
I am in rented accommodation, 2 storage heaters in use, timed electric heater for one hour in the morning in bedroom and a fan heater in the wet room.
I asked for statements/bills. The lady at Scottish Power said they would send these. Two days later, a man at Scottish Power said it wasn't possible to generate statements from times past.
Something sounds very wrong.
Advice would be appreciated please.

naedanger

Star_NCB wrote: »

Advice would be appreciated please.

Complain in writing and demand they send you copies of the terms and conditions for all accounts you have had with SP, a copy of all past* bills (which you never received) and a copy of their complaints procedure.

Once you get the terms and conditions you can check the extent to which SP have failed to manage your account properly e.g did they issue bills when they were supposed to, were the bills based on their actual readings (and not just estimates) etc.

* Make clear you do not want them to generate new bills in respect of the past but rather explain that you only want them to provide the actual bills that were produced in the past.

Furthermore demand that they give you an absolute assurance that they have the actual meter readings taken by the reader. (Once you have these you may be able to see if any were in error. Obviously if their initial reading was too low then you will have been overbilled. That said, if the August 2014 bill of £82.56 is based on actual readings then it is unlikely they made an error in the initial reading that accounts for the high accrued balance.)

You may wish to add (if true) that had they notified you sooner of your apparent usage you would have taken prompt action to economise, and that their failure to manage your account properly has therefore lead you to a significant financial loss.

Then once they reply you can consider your next step.

chanz4

Suppliers are only liable to take reads once every 2 years, but to issue a bill every quarter. My bet is the storage heaters, ask for an energy efficencys visit.


Also the terms are supplier standard so not point, also you can see them online

comeandgo

Scottish Power have problems with their systems, great problems!

naedanger

chanz4 wrote: »

Suppliers are only liable to take reads once every 2 years, but to issue a bill every quarter.

But often suppliers are obliged to bill using the actual reading (if available, whether taken by their own reader or the customer) unless they have reason to doubt the reading's accuracy.

aquila2009

comeandgo wrote: »

Scottish Power have problems with their systems, great problems!

massive problems!

Pincher

Meter reader every two months is very odd.

I am getting one every two years, from Scottish Power.

Star_NCB

Thank you all for your comments. I received 5 bills through the post at the beginning of the week, and as I could make head nor tail of them, I emailed copies to my parents!! It turns out that I was being overcharged for both rates for the standard tariff I was on. I phoned Scottish Power and put my findings to the very polite and helpful guy who answered. He was very apologetic and confirmed that I had been overcharged. He passed the details to the manual billing team. I informed him that I was going to make a complaint for the poor service etc and he offered to start the proceedings for me! He said I would be contacted by the complaints dept within 24-48 hours.
6 hours later, I received a call from the complaints dept! The guy confirmed all that had been said in my earlier call, as well as informing me that due to the error in charges I now in fact only owe £49.28! Much better! He's also put me onto a lower tariff. We have agreed to a monthly Direct Debit of £100 which is saving me £34.77 a month. He assures me this will be enough due to the lower price rates I will be on. He has emailed me with all the figures and details of our conversation. My complaint will remain on file indefinitely.
I had already begun the process of changing suppliers before this matter was resolved but am now unsure if to proceed in light of these reduced rates, although this doesn't change the fact that the service I've received has been so shoddy.

chanz4

naedanger wrote: »

But often suppliers are obliged to bill using the actual reading (if available, whether taken by their own reader or the customer) unless they have reason to doubt the reading's accuracy.

If available and fall into line

[Deleted User]

I work for Scot Power reading meters.Please check your day and night reads are getting correctly billed.The meter readers have no idea if they are getting the day/night reads correct.Understand your own meter. Check the timer switch which controls the switchover. The old 24 hr timers can have the cheap 7 hours coming on at virtually any time in the 24 hr cycle.Digital meters with built in timers can drift an hour or so.Radio teleswitch timers are more or less spot on. Maybe Scot Power are back billing you for transposed readings in the past.We normally read Scot Power meters 6 monthly .No supplier reads two monthly but if they re keen to access for a "must read " status read we will harass them more often.

macman

Your new DD of £100 isn't 'saving you £34.77'. It's simply reducing your monthly payment. If your ongoing usage is more than £100 then you will simply be building debt. The solution, as always, is to monitor your usage by submitting meter reads at least every 3 months, rather than waiting for an agent read and the inevitable huge catch-up bill and subsequent DD hike.