MSE News: Yorkshire Energy customers furious over Scottish Power switch delays

rooster47

I'm no fan of SP but it's becoming increasingly obvious that SP and YE customers are both 'in the same boat' of despair with the speed of the administrators of YE in finalizing bills and transferring data/balances.

The ultimate blame for this fiasco rests with OFGEM, that toothless, dare I say overseer of energy Companies, who seemingly just 'wash their hands' of the issue of an energy Company failure asap, without regard to the ability of the new nominated energy Company to cope with the extra customer base. Additionally it's the failing Company's creditors who pay the monetary price and the administrators who reap the rewards especially if their charges are on a time basis, the most common method, the administrators are likely not bound by any OFGEM ruling regards a time scale in dealing with such an administration. Where, in this case, is there any incentive to appease YE customer's with final bills and in time transfers?

Thankfully I don't believe I have a credit balance with YE, time will tell if true, so I feel for those folk who do have one, one they are keen to get access to and recover either by repayment or to offset against later consumption

clive764

Herbalus said:

The new contract on SP is not actually that much more expensive than the YE one, and is the one of the cheapest SP tariff they do. Just sit tight and they will get round to it.

the SP tariff for switched YE customers is fixed until June so there is plenty of time. They are busy, just go and make a cup of tea and do something else. There’s plenty more in life to be furious about. 

It depends which Yorkshire Energy tariff you were on - it was much more expensive than my Yorkshire Energy tariff.

phillw

Herbalus said:

The new contract on SP is not actually that much more expensive than the YE one, 

For me it's about 25% more expensive, they did have a lot of tariffs.
I wish I'd signed up for a new tariff as soon as the news hit, because the tariffs in december were much better. I did jump as soon as I saw SP were listed on the database though.

A.Muse

Started my switch from SP as soon as the account was set up and have now got my final bill. The final bill does not take account of the £200+ owed to me by YE.  I'm waiting for a call back from SP to tell me what happens next!!!!!!!! No final bill from YE yet.

My YE account was in credit, yet YE took a direct debit payment on 15 Dec 2020 (after they ceased trading on 6 Dec). Was this legal?

36bells

Its 15% more expensive for me. Main difference is the per unit for electricity (19.44 vs 14.79) and the standing charges, (gas 22.22 vs 8.442 per day). They say you are on their 'energy exclusive tariff' . Id like to post the link but forum won't let me so google "scottish power energy exclusive tariff"

A.Muse

My final bill from SE used prices that were not the ones they advised on their take over e-mail. Not too concerned as they work out almost the same, but seems to point to the fact that they are not efficient!!! 

ISIHAC19

Looks like I'll have a long wait for my refund then! I'm caught between the proverbial 'rock and a hard place' as I switched from Yorkshire Energy (YE) just before they went bust, so although they or Scottish Power (SP) has the money owing to me, each of them has said its waiting for the other. I had a final statement from YE back in December which stated that I'd get my reund on the 22nd of that month. Xmas and the New Year came and went, and having got no further with SP I told them wanted to raise a formal complaint; its reply was that I couldn't because I wasn't a customer. Unfortunately the Energy Ombudsman service form for requesting their intervention also requires me to be a SP customer so they will not consider my complaint. All SP would say is I'll get a cheque but won't say when. I'm lucky in that the amount of money involved is not great, but it could be an issue for other people and I believe that the obligations on energy companies to speed up the refunding of customers' credit balances is long overdue. After all, even if individually the amount is small, collectively its all money that the companies are using to fund their operations without paying anything for doing so! I have just written to my M.P about this issue.......

Gerry1

ISIHAC19 said:

Unfortunately the Energy Ombudsman service form for requesting their intervention also requires me to be a SP customer so they will not consider my complaint.

Welcome to the forum.

Try submitting a complaint to the ombudsman via snail mail.

Chino

rooster47 said:

Thankfully I don't believe I have a credit balance with YE, time will tell if true

Assuming that you gave YE regular meter readings and you gave readings to SP when requested, there's no reason why you can't calculate what you either owe or are owed by YE yourself.

Phones4Chris

ISIHAC19 said:

Looks like I'll have a long wait for my refund then! I'm caught between the proverbial 'rock and a hard place' as I switched from Yorkshire Energy (YE) just before they went bust, so although they or Scottish Power (SP) has the money owing to me, each of them has said its waiting for the other. I had a final statement from YE back in December which stated that I'd get my reund on the 22nd of that month. Xmas and the New Year came and went, and having got no further with SP I told them wanted to raise a formal complaint; its reply was that I couldn't because I wasn't a customer. ................

Unfortunately it's not "money" exactly, it's just credit that SP will have to pay you. Have you tried to contact the retained YE team either by email or phone as detailed on the Support page help@ye.co.uk or 0113-451-0700. Ask them explicitly if the detail of the credit on your final bill has been passed to SP and the date when that was passed to SP?
(Email to the Administrators gets sent straight to the YE team, they possibly don't work weekends). If you use email to the YE team and want an answer to a specific question, you'll first get an auto-response with a number of suggestions (which in this case won't help), just reply to that and say those responses didn't answer your question. You should then get a reply to your email. When I did it recently (beginning of the week), I had a reply within 15 minutes - very efficient!
Then armed with that information you can get back to SP and twist their goollies very specifically. I can't see how they can deal with paying you the credit without creating an account for you to record the transactions (even if you have no usage). As they haven't yet paid you, such an account must still exist, so it wouldn't be closed, so you would "technically" be a customer 
If that approach gets nowhere, then try an email to the SP CEO.