Scottish Power Nightmare

samtoby

I have been using Scottish Power for years and earlier in 2018 they started sending me bills for the Electric saying I had not paid. I was assured on the phone that yes, all was ok and it was just automated, left all alone until December when they issued me another bill saying that I was 2.2k in debt and that a default had been applied.

Now, I had received no notification no nothing, so I called them asking what was going on as I made a standing order payment to them every month of £300 and by my calculations I was only £100 in debt.

I contacted my bank and got a print out - bank details exactly what Scottish Power state and the account number as the reference. I went back and sent proof on the 30/12/2019. They said a team will have to locate it but they can see I have made payments and that they will remove the default.

Its been two weeks now, no one can tell me where its gone or how long its going to take - I am so worried I have worked so hard to keep my credit clear.

Has anyone else had this issue?

Neil_Jones

Have you been reading your meters and given those readings to Scottish Power?

Go and take a meter reading now and dig out the most recent bill or two and look at the meter readings section. How far out is the reading you've just taken from what the bill says? Do they have an A, C or an E next to any of them? If they all say E's then that's the problem and your standing order isn't covering your usage and by the sounds of it hasn't been so for quite a while if you apparently owe over £2k.

Gerry1

samtoby wrote: »

I made a standing order payment to them every month of £300 and by my calculations I was only £100 in debt.

Well, those are two big clues ! Your SO may not be covering your usage if it turns out to be more than you expected: unlike a DD, SP can't increase it so any shortfall will just keep building up. The same applies if it turns out that you got your sums wrong.

samtoby

I do my metre readings every month. If I add all the payments I have made and they have not counted I would be just £100 in debt as of today (just worked it out).

So no, thats not it.

Neil_Jones

samtoby wrote: »

I do my metre readings every month. If I add all the payments I have made and they have not counted I would be just £100 in debt as of today (just worked it out).

So no, thats not it.

Payments made is not equal to usage consumed.
Energy is charged per unit as read by your meter. You don't pay Scottish Power £100 a month and then burn through all the electricity you want, they'll be charging you somewhere between 12-15p per unit plus a standing charge of on average 20p a day.

How much electricity do you use per year? What is your unit rate and standing charge?
Do you have gas or is there only electric heating at your property? If its electric only you may also have Economy 7 and storage heaters, which will cost you a fortune during the day and cheaper between 11pm/12/1am and 6/7/8am depending on region and your usage split.

Electric heating is not particularly cheap unfortunately.

matelodave

samtoby wrote: »

I do my metre readings every month. If I add all the payments I have made and they have not counted I would be just £100 in debt as of today (just worked it out).

So no, thats not it.

Have you been checking your bills to see whether the payments are being applied to your account.
The fact that you send in readings and that money is going out of your bank account doesn't guarantee that both are being applied to your energy account.

I always send in my readings on the last day of the month and then check my online account a few days later to ensure that the readings have been applied and that my payments have been credited.
.
I also download a PDF of the statement/bill/invoice (every month) and save it so I've got my own record of what is going on.

If you'd been doing all of that then you could see the state of your account and would either have seen that everything was OK and you have proof or that something was wrong and you could have done something about it