Scottish Power are a shambles

shergar1984

I am writing to say, take a Scottish Power deal at your peril. 

I took a deal in march and all was well. The switchover was fine, no need to actually do anything. My problems started when an opportunity came up on a house that I couldn't refuse so just over a month into the tariff I moved home. By this time lock down had firmly kicked in so was unable to ring Scottish Power to move my supplied address. I used their online house move service instead. All appeared to go ok and right on cue a couple of days later i received a link to say my account was available. I logged on to see the progress of the switch over and in doing so noticed that rather than keeping me on the tariff i was already on which was still available, they had moved me onto a tariff that was over 30% more expensive. 

I immediately contacted them and was told simply to select the desired tariff on uswitch, put in my account number and it would automatically put me on the correct tariff once they receive the request. fast forward over 2 months. I had my initial switch request declined by the legacy supplier as i had been unable to take ownership of the account when i moved in due to their call centres being closed. this was resolved immediately and should have delayed the switch by 10 days according to their own adviser. it took 8 weeks to get on supply with them. They have yet to offer a reason for this and simply refer me to the initial refusal of my legacy company despite me reminding them that this should have only delayed it by 10 days. Even now 3 weeks after coming on supply with Scottish Power i am still not on the correct tariff and the compensation they offered to me for the delays as a measure of goodwill hasn't been credited to my account.

so here is a list of reasons to avoid Scottish Power

they do not give a toss about you, the company acts like a schoolyard bully in order to frustrate and wear you out so you just quietly go away. if you have an issue they will not resolve it because they know that you and the regulators are impotent against them.

their staff are complicit and well versed in this process. i have been told that my unresolved complaints have been escalated to director level just to find out they have closed my complaint without my saying so. they do this as then every subsequent complaint gets raised as a new one so you never get close enough to the 8 weeks required to escalate to the ombudsman.

the organisation is set up in such a way as you cannot directly speak to anyone who has administrative access to your account. the first person you speak to will be the only person you speak to and they will only be able to send the relevant department an email by which time you've wasted another 3 or 4 days. they also do not have the ability to patch you through to the relevant department to speak to them directly.

they do not keep to their own self imposed deadlines. they do not stick to agreed call back times and if you miss a call from them do not expect them to extend the courtesy of trying again. they offer resolutions to problems but then don't actually carry them out.
  
they generally ignore emails sent through the contactus email address and when they do reply 2-3 days later its someone who hasn't take the time to familiarise themselves with the content of the email or any previous correspondence you may have had with them. when you respond to their reply because they have blatently not read your first email, guess what another 2-3 days and another adviser who treats your email with the same contempt.

the staff are actively lying to customers. over the course of probably 10 hours of talking to the complaints department they have contradicted themselves, told me that i shouldn't have been advised certain things and been 

they do not care that you are paying money for a service because they know that you are tied into a contract with penalty exit fees. worst of all is the paying bit is the only thing they have managed to get right. despite messing me around at every point where they have had an input into my account, they managed to take money out of my bank without mistake. 

so to summarise, you have been warned. there are a lot of companies out there who have nowhere near the market position that Scottish Power is afforded yet they have nailed the customer relations side of things. i generally avoid the big 6 anyway as they aren't overly competitive most of the time but against my better judgement i ignored this rule and i'm now paying for it. this experience has been the worst customer experience i have had in over 20 years and they do not care about that.

Hasbeen

Welcome to the MSE forum.
Your post  is a warning and a vent against SP?
So perhaps posting here: 
 https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/praise-vent-warnings

shergar1984

I fully accept that 10 day delay as a result of me not following this process. i not usually in the situation where the call centre of the legacy supplier is closed to all non emergency calls. i did however persist and resolve the delay immediately. what i'm outlining here is that at every stage that Scottish Power has had some input into my account it has been done incorrectly. best case is that everyone who had altered my account has made a mistake but the likelihood of that being at every point is just not possible. its now got to the point where it feels like they are doing it just for the pure sporting fun of it.

shergar1984

Hasbeen said:

Welcome to the MSE forum.
Your post  is a warning and a vent against SP?
So perhaps posting here: 
 https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/praise-vent-warnings

apologies, perhaps the forum admin can move this post to the correct section