scottish power missed 8 appointments; am I being greedy?

snuff2pay

I have had an issue with Scottish Power missing appointments to change an economy 7 meter at a property which is not always occupied. On every occasion either myself or my husband has had to undergo a 150 mile round trip to be at the property, losing a day's holiday to do so.

The deadlock letter ( which contains a number of inaccuracies ) suggests that I want over £1000 as a goodwill gesture; I don't, £1450 is to cover our actual costs.

I have applied to the ombudsman but they say that as the complaint was first raised over 9 months ago I am now time barred, even though the job has only just been completed.

I feel really resentful that I am being made to look greedy when, as a result of the tarrif being charged not being clear on the bill, I had already been overpaying for nearly 5 years. In addition, SP knew how much electricity I was using and when, and so there was no need to change the meter anyway.

"Dear Mr xxxxx,

My name is xxxx xxxxxx, and I am your key point of contact for your outstanding complaint.

I am very sorry I have been unable to reach an agreement regarding the resolution of your complaint, the details of which are below.

What we have done to try to reach an agreement with you. At the start of 2016 you requested a meter change to have your Economy 7 meter replaced with a single rate meter. An appointment was arranged to carry out this work. Your normal residence is in Bolton but the property concerned is as per the address above so you had to travel there and back to attend appointments. The job was successfully completed on 21st June 2016 however I acknowledge that prior to this there were numerous problems.


I acknowledge that we failed to carry out the necessary work on 8 occasions on, 2 February 2016, 3 March 2016, 14 March 2016, 11 April 2016, 26 April 2016, 13 May 2016, 31 May 2016 and 14 June 2016

In respect of the appointments not going ahead, 6 of the 8 dates qualified you for a Guaranteed Standards failure payment. There were two of the jobs were where an engineer actually attended your property but the back board on the meter was damaged, so the work could not be completed. We have actually paid you for 7 dates and these were paid to you as follows: 2 x £22.00 on 6 April 2016 and 5 payments of £30.00 on 9th May 2016, 25th May 2016 and 2 June 2016 and 2 on the 13th June 2016. Therefore we have overpaid you by the amount of £30.00.

You have also received 3 x £30 late payment fees as 3 of the GS failure payments were paid outside of the required timescales.
Whilst dealing with your complaint, goodwill payments of £50.00 on 14 April 2016 and £25.00 on 25 May 2016 have already been paid to you.

I have offered you a further goodwill payment of £150.00 in view of the poor service you have received. You have declined this offer and requested a goodwill payment of £1000.00.


Our Final Offer

As a final offer, I have provided this letter and full explanation of the case. You have been paid 7 Guaranteed Standard appointment failure fees (totalling £194.00) and 3 late payment fees for the same (totalling £90.00).
You have also been credited with goodwill payments totalling £75.00. In addition, I have offered to credit your account with a further £150.00 as a gesture of goodwill. This is my final offer and I believe it to be a fair resolution to your complaint. If you wish to accept it, I have provided my contact details above and would ask that you get in touch with me.

If you decide not to accept my final offer we will have reached a 'deadlock' position, which means we cannot agree on a resolution to your complaint. You will therefore be entitled to contact Ombudsman Services: Energy, and have up to 12 months from the date of this deadlock letter to do so.

Should you decide to approach the Ombudsman for a review of your complaint, we will withdraw the offer and await their decision."

Am I being greedy?

KingS6

I don't understand. If the complaint was raised over 9 months ago (when exactly?), but you have 12 months from the date of the deadlock letter to go to the Ombudsman.

How can you be time barred?

As by the by its Scottish Power, what do you expect?

snuff2pay

Thanks for that. It was the ombudsman who said I was time barred so I think I need to go back to them. Why is everything a battle!

SammenForLivet2

Whilst I fully appreciate that this isn't the answer that your looking for, and I can only imagine the frustration that you must have faced from Scottish Power, I believe the resolution provided by Scottish Power is fair based on the information made available to us, given the Meter Exchange (MEX) doesn't seem to be an emergency.

Can you share with us the breakdown of the £1,450 your claiming for? SP have correctly credited you the GSOS payments, and seem to have offered a very good settlement based on the information available to us.

snuff2pay

Not at all. Happy to receive any input as when you are in the throes of a situation it's easy to lose perspective.
Our costs are
150 mile round trip @ 45p per mile (HMR figures) = £67.50 x 9 occasions (SP miscalculated the number of occasions) = £608.50
9 days lost work @ £92 per day= £828
£8.50 on phone calls.
I am influenced by the fact that Eon made a billing mistake when I changed supplier at my other property and was immediately offered £150 compensation ( mind you it was a stonker!)

Am I being unreasonable to expect actual costs to be considered as a separate issue to goodwill gestures which I always assumed should be for inconvenience.

I do appreciate your comment and if I am being greedy I would rather be told (just not by Scottish Power!).

Carrot007

I'd day you probably are being unreasonable.

They surely just want to change the meter and asked when you would be in.

They did not ask you to make a special visit there or take a day of work surely. therefore it could be argued that that was your own choice.

Probably not what you want to hear but I think this will be their argument.

buglawton

Scottish Power obviously believe that paying compensation is more profitable than keeping appointments. They need to be taught otherwise. In your shoes I'd gamble high and keep escalating this.

snuff2pay

They were fully aware from very early on that we would be required to make specific arrangements to be at the property.
They insisted that someone needed to be there even though the meter was on an outside wall.
They did not need to change the meter. They knew our consumption and when we used it. They could simply have changed how we were billed.
They would not offer weekend appointments.
So no, I would suggest that it was not our choice.

JC_Derby

snuff2pay wrote: »

Not at all. Happy to receive any input as when you are in the throes of a situation it's easy to lose perspective.
Our costs are
150 mile round trip @ 45p per mile (HMR figures) = £67.50 x 9 occasions (SP miscalculated the number of occasions) = £608.50
9 days lost work @ £92 per day= £828
£8.50 on phone calls.
I am influenced by the fact that Eon made a billing mistake when I changed supplier at my other property and was immediately offered £150 compensation ( mind you it was a stonker!)

Am I being unreasonable to expect actual costs to be considered as a separate issue to goodwill gestures which I always assumed should be for inconvenience.

I do appreciate your comment and if I am being greedy I would rather be told (just not by Scottish Power!).

Sorry, ive only scanned this thread Stuff. some questions if you don't mind?
the times that SP turned up but couldn't change the meter due to the meterboard have you included them within the 9?
The 150mile round trip - is that a figure from work or do you not live at the property?
The reason I ask is that if you are also claiming a days lost work, I think its unfeasible to claim mileage and lost work - one or the other imho (but only if you live at the property)

snuff2pay

No I have not included any dates where work was actually done. I am referring to three further appointments which SP made and then denied having made them. The property is not occupied during the week, hence the 150 mile round trip and the day's lost work.

buglawton

I have a 2nd property with an E7 meter. Similar quandary as night metering doesn't actually make sense and a standard meter would be more logical. However in my case there are a handful of suppliers eg iSupplyEnergy whose E7 tariff undercuts typical single meter big name suppliers. I'm going to wait out until the proper 2nd gen smartmeters are available and see the lie of the land then.