Scottish power switched account of dead parents

Silverhoop

Hi all,
Looking for a wee bit of knowledge.

My sister recently contacted Scottish Power to give final Meyer readings of my recently deceased parents house now that it has been sold.
She has been told that the account was switched to Bulb, but it had been switched using her name in December which was after they were both deceased.
My sister was in charge of all the decisions (forgot the name for that) but gave no consent and had no knowledge that this had happened.
Contacting SP today she was told that it had to be challenged within 15 days.

Any advice on this as we didn't ask for it to be switched and we also weren't informed that it was switched.

Aylesbury_Duck

Was there something in the original contract that allowed SP to drop the account if terms weren't fulfilled?  If that happened, then Bulb may have picked up the account as supplier of last resort, similar to the way accounts with utility providers that went bust did.

E.g. failure to provide readings or make necessary payments.
 

phillw

Silverhoop said:

Any advice on this as we didn't ask for it to be switched and we also weren't informed that it was switched.

All you can really do is raise a complaint against Scottish Power.

Had you informed them that your parents were deceased?

That might change the complaint I made.

user1977

As above, if your sister was the executor, hadn't she told SP of the deaths? Where were the bills being sent? Was anything being paid? Has she contacted Bulb (or whoever has taken them over)? Does it result in a net cost to you anyway?

Silverhoop

Thanks all.
She had let SP know that they had both passed and at that point es told that they were still £200 in credit and needed the final Meyer reading as we would obviously be still using electricity as we cleaned and prepared the house for selling.
She is phoning Bulb today so should find out more.
Just she was so upset yesterday to find out this had happened after spending literally a when day on the phone.

Olinda99

Sorry to hear this - probably the last thing you want at this time

The best thing to do is to just try and forget it - I assume there will be an account with Bulb and on the standard rate so hopefully you won't be out of pocket. Give Bulb the final readings and pay whatever is owing (if anything).

sheramber

When my nephew contacted SP to give a final reading when he sold his house he was told the meter had been switched to Eon.

After many months it was discovered that the wrong meter was allocated to the house. 

 Apparently SP supply a load of meters to the builder but instead of fitting them  as allocated by SP they fitted them randomly so the wrong meter numbers were shown against the wrong houses.

It took 18 months before someone worked out what had happened.