Scottish Power Bill Help

bjkirby

I have just been looking into my in-laws accounts, who are both in their 80s. In 2015 my f-i-l had a triple bypass, followed by several bouts of post-op illness, so things like energy bills got forgotten.

Looking at their account online, they were paying £60 pcm DD but had not been charged anything from May '14 to Oct '15. Then a bill of £1870 was received, taking them into arrears by some £400. However, they received a letter saying their DD would not be changing. During this period a new meter was fitted too, on 24th July 2014. When I looked at the information in their statements, it made no sense. There were credits and debits with no explanation of what they are for.

Subsequently, the latest bill shows a deficit approaching £900. So the DD is clearly inadequate.

I've started the switching process away from SP but I'm really disappointed that they are allowed to let this sort of deficit build up, for two elderly customers. The m-i-l in particular gets quite agitated about money issues, although they are fortunately able to cover the costs in this case.

Anyone know if there's anything can be done about this shoddy customer service?

Brian

p.s. I checked the meter reading and they seem to be correct.

p.p.s. I've put all the data from the bills in a spreadsheet and the numbers do add up correctly, once I'd worked out what they meant. However, still don't know what the 'adjustment' was for.

R34GTT

Had a similar problem with Scottish Power estimating a much higher use for Gas than the same period in the previous year and the Direct Debit shot up from £50 to £160! Meter readings were supplied which should have caused a new bill to be generated but for some reason the meter readings wouldn't save on their online account (still won't). A call to them got the DD reduced but they couldn't tell me why the estimate had gone so far out despite being with them for 3 years with a consistent pattern of usage.

Scottish Power are cheapest at the moment for us but I value accurate billing over cheapest so will be switching once we get the billing sorted this time.

Richie7

Thank you for the responses again everyone.


I have today penned a letter to Scottish Power asking for them to look at my account - usage and costs. I got nowhere with an e-mail, and the 2 people I have spoken to on the phone already were no help whatsoever.


Interesting R34GTT that you had a similar hike in price. With the summer months coming as well, I would have expected my parents to have needed to pay less not more. This kind of practice though appears to quite common - getting account holders to overpay on accounts. Seems a lot of people find themselves in credit.


I used the switching tool yesterday on 'The Cheap Energy Club' and was very surprised to find they could save £600 by switching. I had no idea it would be this much. The top one was iSupply who appear quite favourable as well. I take it people do this via 'The Energy Club' quite often?

CashStrapped

Richie7

If you give type the dates and actual (not estimated) meter readings for the past year or so, we can help you calculate the amounts owed. Also type the tariff name and unit rates for gas and electric, including standing charges.

We could then also help to confirm your annual use and day/night % split. Those details are important to get correct when doing a comparison.

Richie7

CashStrapped wrote: »

Richie7

If you give type the dates and actual (not estimated) meter readings for the past year or so, we can help you calculate the amounts owed. Also type the tariff name and unit rates for gas and electric, including standing charges.

We could then also help to confirm your annual use and day/night % split. Those details are important to get correct when doing a comparison.

Do you mean here on this thread? Or put them on the Switching Tool?


I don't think I can get actual readings to be honest unless they're on the bills. The only actual reading I could get is when I look on the day. The tariff details I have though.

CashStrapped

Yes, here on the forum, just type the meter readings and dates if you can find them. They will be on the bills. Any confirmed or actual readings have a C or an A next to them and estimated ones have a E.

Richie7

Right okay, thank you. I'll see what I can do as soon as I can. It depends if my parents still have bills beyond last May. I think I might have seen one for March, but was possibly estimated.


Unfortunately them being elderly and not really on the ball with this kind of thing, I'm playing it all a bit blind with what information I have.

Richie7

CashStrapped wrote: »

Yes, here on the forum, just type the meter readings and dates if you can find them. They will be on the bills. Any confirmed or actual readings have a C or an A next to them and estimated ones have a E.

In looking at this a bit closer, I may have spotted the problem. Despite people coming to read the meter's, it would appear most of the readings Scottish Power have been using are estimates. Why this is the case I do not know.

Their Tariff is Standard and costs 14.762p Normal, and 6.21p Off-Peak. There's a Standing Charge of 31.24p per day.

However, I do not really understand the bills, they overlap somewhat. For the period 10/12/13 - 10/03/15 it says the energy charges were £1,137.50. Then I have a statement from 8th May telling me the exact same thing. This however is titled an "Amended Statement". On both statement's it says the estimated usage in the last 12 months was 5,761.971 and Off-Peak 3,306.750.

Then I have the ridiculous December statement that says the energy charges are suddenly £2,151.29. Now it also says my actual usage was 7,555.770 and Off-Peak 4,445.869.

The only actual readings I can give is one on 19th Jan 2015, which was 28887 and Off-Peak 11483. And one I took on 26th January 2016, which was 36471 and Off-Peak 16386.

In between those dates I'm not sure what has taken place with regards to people coming to read the meter's. If you can tell me anything from this information then I'll be over the moon!!

Thanks for your time.

CashStrapped

OK, the two readings that are most important are the ones which are one year apart. If those Jan 15 to Jan 16 actual readings are correct then...

Over the year it seems your parents are using 12,487KWH!!!

7548 KWH peak |(36471 - 28887)

4903 KWH off peak (16386 - 11483)

With an off peak night use of 39% (4903 is 39% of 12487)
This is one of the contributors to the high bills.

An average high user for an all electric property will use maybe 7500KW in total for the year. Your parents are using nearly 12500KWH. This has a caviat relating to house size, level of insulation etc.

Furthermore the usage is skewed towards the expensive day rate which will cost an arm and a leg. They are only using 39% of their total use on the cheap rate!

I will hazard a guess (I may be wrong) they are using portable heaters and electric fireplaces around the house to supplement their storage heaters. They need to stop this and use the storage heaters only. They may also be using an immersion during the day too.

If the storage heaters do not give out enough heat, they need to look at how they are using them and if they are using the controls correctly. If they do use them correctly they may need to check that they are correctly sized for the property.

The next issue is that they are on an uncompetitive standard tariff!

For my area, using the figures I calculated, you are paying £440 more than you need to based on that alone. Scottish Power have a cheap tariff you can switch to immediately which is very competitive for those usage figures.

Use the figures above in a comparison site and see what comes up cheapest for your area.

Once you get their electric use under control and shift it to night time (reducing their daytime use), you may want to run a comparison again to see if their new usage pattern is better suited for a different tariff.

(P.S Actual/confirmed meter readings are only given by a meter reading or the customer themselves. A meter reader will only come once every 2 years. So if a customer relies on estimated readings, and their use is outside a normal pattern,which your parents is, it will result in wildly inaccurate billing until an actual reading is given.)

Richie7

Wow. Thanks very much for looking at that for me. Despite it now presenting me with a further problem. I can confirm that my parents don't use heaters or anything to supplement fires etc, so now I'm thinking about the wiring or faulty electrics. They just simply cannot be using that much electricity.

Switching therefore seems like the only option open to me for now then. Whilst I investigate further.

Just out of curiosity, I set up broadband for them about 18 months ago. Using BT Powerline Adapters plugged into a few of the sockets. I was under the impression these use very little in the way of electricity, as they are on 24/7. Is that the case? It's the only thing I can think of that has changed in their setup.