Scottish Power - unreasonable bill dispute - advice needed!

Talldave

Just be clear that you misread the meter. That's all there is to it.

Gerry1

That 7/7 reading is a textbook example of how hard it can be to read a dial meter, especially when there are no arrows to emphasise the different directions of rotation.  Three of the five dials have to be 'corrected', including the all-important 10,000kWh one.

It's also rather surprising that SP don't seem to run any checks to flag up such massive discrepancies. Where there's been an unexpected spike of 10,000kWh it wouldn't be difficult for the billing software to check whether the 'A' digit should be reduced by one if the 'B' digit were 0, 9 or 8: an 'Are You Sure?' email could be generated, or a 'Draw The Hands On The Dials' postcard sent out.

martygraffin68

Just a quick bit of closure, Scottish Power have now recognised that the £1700 bill was incorrect and billed us based on the right meter readings, they also acknowledged that they created a lot of issues and so agreed to waive any remaining fees for our final bill.

Thank you to everyone who gave advice on this thread, without it I imagine I'd still be going round in circles with their horrific customer services dept. I really appreciate all the advice and people's willingness to help a stranger on the internet, it sped up the time it took to resolve the issue massively and saved us a lot of extra stress and anxiety. 

All the best to everyone

matelodave

Thanks for coming back and letting us know how you got on. That sounds like you got a good result.

Hopefully now you can start with a clean sheet and make sure you keep on top of your meter readings and bills (check them once a month) - it saves a lot of aggro and you can spot problems occurring before they get out of hand.

all the best