Ongoing problems with Scottish Power

laurynsausage

Sorry for long post in advance, however I'm looking for some advice......


I am writing on behalf of my 85yr old grandad, who has been contacting Scot Power continually about his bills since 2010, at least:eek:.

There have been numerous issues and his last complaint about SP not taking his DD for over a year was escalated to ombudsman and his £4k balance was wiped.

I have now taken up the baton to establish why his bills are £3,800 per year for electric - he has no gas into the property. This was never looked at in the original complaint and they have kept on assuming he is a high user! In reality he is frightened to switch his heating on and as such has bought bottled gas for a fire heater!!.

I called 6 weeks again to ask what can be done to investigate the annual usage and they said they would swap out the meter. SP were supposed to send out an engineer on Wednesday 17th aug to swap the meter to establish if there is a fault, however there was a no show. I then called and they said there was nothing wrong with his bills or meter! they have said this since 2010!! I got into an argument with the complete jobs worth who took my call and after 6 times of asking I finally got a manager.

The manager I was passed to seems to be someone with common sense, I gave the 'saga story' and he asked for the FIRST TIME EVER if my grandad had storage heating! no, he does not, it's a water based system to put hot water to his radiators. So it's water heated into the radiators by electric (wet electric heating system), instead of the usual gas or in some cases oil.

In winter he has his heating on:
0600-0800
1000-1630
1830-2130

The manager clocked straight away that SP have him on a Comfort 2000 storage heating package and he doesn't have storage heating.
He agreed to call me back the next day at a specific time - which he duly did to get the model numbers of the various pieces of kit my grandad has:

Boiler- E-TECH 15 mono, using a Horseman radio telemeter series 2A, normal rads and they have him on Comfort 2000 (storage heating).

All this time they have assumed, as they have never asked, he was on storage heating, His heating is on during the day and not overnight (like that required for storage heating).

He has been sworn at, hung up on and basically treated as stupid. All the time SP being adamant his bills very normal and his readings correct.

The manager is escalating the issue to the customer liaison team, but tbh given our experience with SP the last 6 years I don't hold out much hope and the imager has already said he can't see them doing anything with all the extra money my grandad has overpaid.:mad::mad:


I need to find out:

whos responsibility is it to fix the potential equipment and package mismatchs that seems to have happened? is it SP or the company that fitted the boiler or me?

SP seem to be shirking and saying it's up to me to find out if his meter is suitable for his boiler? and have asked me to call they energy efficient team to get advice :mad:

Who has to pay if it's the wrong meter type?

can anyone please help :money:

thank you very much in advance.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

It is the customers duty to choose the tariff most appropriate for them. You need to forget about the word 'mismatch' - there are plenty of people out there on a time bound tariff such as E7 or E10 who don't have storage heaters. They just take advantage of the cheaper units using their 'normal' hearing system.

SP are not liable here, although I predict they'll offer a goodwill gesture of a few hundred quid to placate you. But you should leave them, they are one of the worst suppliers for price and service. There are plenty others out there.

Cardew

Agree with the post above, i.e. SP are not liable.

Was he on storage heating before installation of his current heating system?

These days accounts are 'handled' by a computer without human intervention. Although even a simple analysis of his bills would show his off-peak consumption was not high enough to justify his 'Comfort' package. However it is not reasonable to expect energy companies to investigate their customer's heating systems, especially when millions change their company each year.

IMO that 'analysis' should be done by your granddad, or yourself if you have taken responsibility for his account.

Certainly the installer of the 'wet CH' system should have advised him to get a normal 24/7 tariff.

kazwookie

Change the title of your thread to some thing like ' problems with Scottish Power,' and I am sure the SP rep on this site will be along like a flash to help.

laurynsausage

Cardew wrote: »

Was he on storage heating before installation of his current heating system?

hi , no he's never been on storage heating and he's been calling them for past 5/6 years about his extortionate bills - yet they continued to tell him there was nothing wrong. It's even been as far as SPSO, yet none of them whist investigating his complaint looked at the underlying reasons for his perceived high usage. They continued to tell him he was a high usage customer.

Rubidium

laurynsausage wrote: »

hi , no he's never been on storage heating and he's been calling them for past 5/6 years about his extortionate bills - yet they continued to tell him there was nothing wrong. It's even been as far as SPSO, yet none of them whist investigating his complaint looked at the underlying reasons for his perceived high usage. They continued to tell him he was a high usage customer.

You don't seem to realise that this is the most expensive type of heating to operate and you have not mentioned how the domestic hot water is heated, is that heated overnight using the E7 off peak rate?

Using an E-TECH 15 mono electric boiler for 11.5 peak time hours will certainly put him in the high user bracket! The boiler is rated at 14400W i.e. when on it uses 1000 times more than a typical CFL light bulb!

You talk about perceived high usage, how much electricity do you expect this system to use? Read the meter regularly to see for yourself how many units are being used each day, each week etc. on day rate and the night rate.

It is then up to you to decide if you have "taken up the baton", which is the most suitable tariff and supplier to use.

You do not need to have storage heaters to be on an E7 tariff as you seem to believe is the case!

dogshome

Just checking I've got my head around this
Grandad has an Electric fully wet heating system he powers up during the day.
He does not have an ECO7 meter, but is being charged Day/Night ECO7 tariff rates and gets the brush-off from SP's Service Desk staff..

Could this be I wonder a c*ck-up on the Regional data base as to the type of meter installed ?
An Electric wet central heating system isn't a cheap or easy option to install, so I'm wondering if this was originally an ECO7 property which someone, (or even Grandad), upgraded and the change of meter was not recorded on the data base

Best to google 'Who supplies my Electricity' and check the data base as to the type of meter they 'think' the property has.

laurynsausage

dogshome wrote: »

Just checking I've got my head around this
Grandad has an Electric fully wet heating system he powers up during the day.
He does not have an ECO7 meter, but is being charged Day/Night ECO7 tariff rates and gets the brush-off from SP's Service Desk staff..

Could this be I wonder a c*ck-up on the Regional data base as to the type of meter installed ?
An Electric wet central heating system isn't a cheap or easy option to install, so I'm wondering if this was originally an ECO7 property which someone, (or even Grandad), upgraded and the change of meter was not recorded on the data base

Best to google 'Who supplies my Electricity' and check the data base as to the type of meter they 'think' the property has.

thank you dogshome for your positive response.:beer:

My grandad has also commented for a long time and advised SP that his bills started to get out of control from when they installed their new billing system approx 4/5 years ago (same length of time he's been complaining about it), despite the wet system being installed 2008.

I have now had to pick this up on his behalf as his health is being affected, he's 85 and should have to be fighting anyone again at his age. But we both think something is a miss given the £3,800. They would be so bad if someone could explain the exact logical reasons why they are this big considering it's not switched on at present to heat water as he's frightening to use it.

Additionally they keep bringing up 2 accounts for him, that no-one is able to explain either



To answer about previous person in property, he's been in it since he built it in 1982, it was originally oil that was used to heat the radiators and provide heating, but due to getting older he changed to water /ele as it was too heavy to lug oil around.

dogshome

SP's accounting is not to be relied upon - They are still suffering problems from a botched software upgrade.

When the house had oil heating, it would have had a Standard Elec meter, (has there been a meter change?), just in case check that the number on the installed meter matches the number on the bills, and follow through with the Data Base check as the comment that SP say they have 2 accounts for this house is worrying

laurynsausage

dogshome wrote: »

SP's accounting is not to be relied upon - They are still suffering problems from a botched software upgrade.

When the house had oil heating, it would have had a Standard Elec meter, (has there been a meter change?), just in case check that the number on the installed meter matches the number on the bills, and follow through with the Data Base check as the comment that SP say they have 2 accounts for this house is worrying

Thank you, your comments provide me something positive to work on rather than being told it's my issue as SP on liable. Surely they are liable ensuring the billing is correct and appears reasonable, given the length of time this has been complained about. It should also be reasonable to expect that someone contacting them is treated with dignity, fairness and respect.

Rubidium

laurynsausage wrote: »

Thank you, your comments provide me something positive to work on rather than being told it's my issue as SP on liable.

If you are now waiting for assistance from the Scottish Power rep after changing your thread title, then I doubt if they "will be along like in a flash to help" as they have not posted on the forum for many months now!

Before you can help your Granddad, you obviously need to gain a full understanding of his situation yourself and it is obvious from your posts that you have not yet done this.

Your thoughts and assumptions will not help him, you needs facts and figures from previous bills etc. before you can discuss this with SP to determine if he is on a suitable tariff.