Scottish Power - 2 Year Account set-up nightmare.

Caatalyst

Hello Everybody,

I'm just looking for some advice on how other folks would handle the situation I'm in.

Back in March 2014 I moved into a shared house, living with 3 other tenants. We all moved in at the same time and I took on managing the bills for the house. After a bit of research I made the decision to go with Scottish Power who offered the best price based on estimations for the property. I used an energy comparison site to make the decision and did the whole process on-line.

After about a month we received some post saying that approximately £2000 (Can't remember the exact figure and probably not that important) had been left unpaid from the last tenant. I did manage to quickly resolve this, sending the previous energy provider which was N-Power a copy of my tenancy.

While I was in the process of resolving the issue with the outstanding gas bill from the previous tenant I was checking my Scottish Power account. For over 2 months my account profile on their website just said 'welcome cycle' when I logged in. I was calling probably once a week at this point trying to establish why it was taking so long for the accounts to set up and why they weren't taking the direct debit each month. I kept getting told it was been looked into. It got to June and then on my account page I noticed I had two profiles, one for gas and one for electricity. Electricity had come on-line. Gas still said pending. The strange thing I was I had signed up for a dual fuel account. I called up again and asked them why it had taken so long and why gas was still on the 'welcome cycle' 3 months on. Still no answers although I assumed that the outstanding gas balance from the previous tenant has something to do with it. Scottish Power couldn't comment on this.

A frustrating situation? Fast forward to September 2015, a year and a half after I first signed up for the Scottish Power dual fuel account. Finally the gas account comes on-line. For the past year I'd sent multiple letters of complaints, emails and called up so many times. Every time I called I got told it was been sent to the necessary department and that somebody would be in touch with me to get it resolved. I can't tell you how stressful this period was because I couldn't tell the other tenants what exactly our gas usage was as I'd never lived in a house that big or with that many tenants. In that year and a half we had also switched 2 of the original tenants so they were cleared of paying for a gas bill which I had no idea what would cost.

So the gas account came online and a massive lump sum. I had some money saved for it but I didn't have quite enough as it was significantly more than the estimations which they initially provided on the energy comparison sites. I called up to ask why it hadn't taken that long. Nobody I ever spoke to seem to know what was going on. I asked if they would merge the two accounts into a dual fuel like what I signed up for in the first place. This was around November 2015. A few weeks passed and finally it got merged. I kept my eye on the balances. At this point I'd gotten the gas down quite a bit and the electricity was in credit. I worked out the balances from my last bill and new exactly what the amount should have been carried over to the new dual fuel account.

It all looked fine, I could see they carried over the correct amount to the new account although they'd done it over a couple of debits and credits. But then on the same day an additionally £92 was debited from my total balance with no explanation as to where it had come from.

So here I am in March 2016, in a new house which I've moved into and had to carry across all the debit which in the house I was only a quarter responsible for. Still waiting on hold anywhere between 2 minutes and 45 minutes, to then be on the phone for over an hour trying to establish where this £92 has come from. I've been in touch over email, phone and nobody can figure out why they have charged me this £92. I called up the Saturday just gone and it actually seemed like the lady I spoke to was on it and going to sort it. She said somebody would contact me in 24 hours. Well here I am 48 hours later waiting on hold for 22minutes still because nobody called me back.

I literally cannot believe this customer service experience. I don't even know how to express my frustration. 2 years I've been with them and not once have I just had a working account.

All I can do is keep calling them I guess, but I just feel like they should blooming right off my £400 bill left to pay. All the stress, the amount of time I've spent on the phone or writing to them or trying to figure out for myself what's going on, the money I've lost out on from other tenants because I didn't even know how much the gas was accurately each month.

If anybody has any advice I'd be very grateful.

Thank you for your time.

James

Wolf3

It would certainly seem you just cause for your frustrations, unfortunately a reasonable search on these forums would tell you Scottish Power have had more than their fair share of problems. Their billing systems seem more than antiquated.
The issue might have been down to the registration of the gas supply, especially if NPower objected to the transfer, however they probably withdrew the objection when you provided the tenancy agreement to them. The transfer will then have gone ahead delayed by the withdrawn objection, but Scottish Power have been unable to update their billing systems for some reason.

Firstly, from your description, i'd like to ask if Scottish Power produced any gas bills prior to September 2015? as part of the "Back Billing Code Agreement" they signed up to, they would only be able to bill you for the previous 12 months of gas usage, by estimating a reading for Sept '14 and billing till Sept '15.
Secondly, I would suggest you calculate the cost of the numerous phone calls you have made to them regarding this problem. if you made a note of the dates and times of the calls it would put you in a better position asking for some reimbursements.
Finally i would recommend you asking for a reasonable figure for the time and inconvenience this issue has caused you, if you have to refer the case to the ombudsman you would have to justify this figure.
If they havent applied the back billing code and the reimbursemnt clears the £400 you are deemed to owe them, i would say you are perfectly entitled asking them to clear the balance.

If you haven't done so already, I would definitely raise an official complaint with them, other people might tell you to send this as a letter by recorded delivery, however i would suggest for you to do this over the phone and obtain the complaint reference number. The only reason for this is due to the fact an number of posters have not received any response.
When you have opened an official complaint, Scottish Power have 8 weeks to offer a resolution that you are happy with, if you are not happy with their offer after the 8 week period you can refer your case to the Ombudsman service explaining the reasons for referring and setting out your costings described above

ChristineMac

I can't offer any advice but can sympathise completely with your situation. Scottish Power have the worst service I have ever encountered. I've been waiting almost seven month for them to sort out my gas account which, after a failed attempt to transfer to another supplier they haven't been able to do. So I haven't had a gas bill for seven months. I've spent hours on the phone, I call them monthly and every time am starting from scratch. It is incredibly frustrating. I've complained to the ombudsmen but am awaiting a response.