Scottish Power literally uncontactable by any means

hallmark

Had a Smart Meter fitted nearly 3 months ago.  It's never worked.  Spent the whole time since them trying to contact Scottish Power to resolve it.  Here's how that works:

Livechat: is just a bot that gives links to FAQs, none of which are related to Smart Meters

Twitter help: Tells you to DM them name, address, postcode, DOB and account number. After you do that they ignore you (forever)

FB help: Tells you to DM them name, address, postcode, DOB and account number. After you do that they ignore you (forever)

Email: They've removed their email address from their site

Phone:  No matter which set of menu options you try, you eventually get a message that says "our lines are very busy" and cuts you off (just tried this repeatedly).

Want to complain to OFGEM?  You can't.  Because the process is to formally complain to Scottish Power first then if they don't respond within 8 weeks you give OFGEM the details of that complaint.  Since you can never get in touch with Scottish Power to complain, you can never complain to OFTEM.  Neat eh?

Absolutely the worst company on earth, by a country mile.  Has anybody got any ideas how to get in touch with this abomination of a company?

oldagetraveller1

Many organisations are becoming or have become ridiculously difficult to contact. Using these stupid bots too which are mostly useless.

You could try writing to them by that good old fashioned method - a letter of complaint.

ScottishPower Customer Services, 320 St Vincent Street, Glasgow G2 5AD.

I submitted two telephoned complaints to British Gas Services, the middle of December. Heard nothing and phoned again. They had been closed as resolved!

I wrote a letter to their complaints department on the 3rd January outlining the original complaints and added  further one about the originals being closed.

Not received anything back from them. It's looking like there's going to be a letter/report to that toothless Financial Ombudsperson in about four weeks.

Penguin_

Message them through their App & an agent gets back to you within an hour usually.

MikeyPGT

I agree - SP are the absolute pits.  Try putting it through www.resolver.co.uk as a complaint - after trying to sort out out a malfunctioning smart meter from July to November, I am least now able to request callbacks from my 'dedicated complaints handler' (not that it is very dedicated or relable at calling back).  Two more weeks until I can get the ombudsman involved ...

hallmark

Penguin_ said:

Message them through their App & an agent gets back to you within an hour usually.

Unfortunately also useless.  Spent the last hour on this, the agent who finally replied copied me a page of standard blurb saying "it's come to our attention your smart meter is no longer communicating, this could be a temporary signal issue blah blah blah" and I just have to leave it as at some point it'll resolve.

This despite me having explained clearly it's never worked in three months and their own so-called commissioning team has confirmed it requires an engineer visit. (which I've known from the start).

MikeyPGT

My PAYG Smart meter decided to credit me with an extra £180 back in July - I've been trying ever since to get Scottish Power to put it right ... Since then the gap has grown to around £200 in my favour and the meter is constantly losing contact with Scottish Power and the 'award winning app'.  Maybe the call handler who told me to ignore what the Smart Meter says as 'it's just made up figures' was correct!

p00hsticks

hallmark said:

Livechat: is just a bot that gives links to FAQs, none of which are related to Smart Meters

I can't comment on  Scottish Power in particular, but I've found with other similar bots that if you type in something like 'I want to speak to a human' you;ll get put in a queue to chat with an agent.

GrubbyGirl_2

write and send recorded delivery.  At the same time send the same via facebook messenger and twitter messages advising you intend to go to Ofgem

helpfulflowers

Complain, providing you can prove when you first raised the issue, such as a complaint, after 8 weeks take it to the Energy Ombudsman, regardless of whether SP have responded, after 8 weeks you can escalate to the Ombudsman. I did this after EON Next ignored me.

fromdusktilldawn

helpfulflowers said:

Complain, providing you can prove when you first raised the issue, such as a complaint, after 8 weeks take it to the Energy Ombudsman, regardless of whether SP have responded, after 8 weeks you can escalate to the Ombudsman. I did this after EON Next ignored me.

I have had a similar experience with EON Next. Smart meter installed before Christmas, still not working. Impossible to contact via any sensible route. I tried to contact them online and was given a phone number, which just ends up in a long queue with no indication of how long to wait for an answer. The added complication for me is Economy 7 - the smart meter is much harder to read manually than the old meter - wish I hadnt bothered. Comments noted with interest, it might be time to complain more formally.

hallmark

It's very clear that the Energy Companies, almost certainly with the knowing support of Ofgem, are playing games with the Smart Meter rollouts.  The final/full commissioning part of the process is to ensure the gas meter talks to the electricity meter, the electricity meter in turn talks to the IHD and (via Sim) to the Energy company, so the Smart Meter actually does what it's meant to.  However that part (presumably because it might take awhile) is routinely omitted.  Thus customers are left with a non-working setup.  A seperate team then attempts to remotely commission the meter, which customers are told can take up to 90 days.  If that fails, the customer then has to try to get hold of customer service because the only way the meter will ever work is if an engineer visits on-site to commission it. This is the boat I'm in.

So basically the whole smart meter rollout is being handled in a way that allows Energy Companies and Ofgem to report vastly inflated figures regarding households converted to smart meters, whilst in reality many of those are not commissioned and don't work.

This is especially nefarious because a not-commissioned meter will typically report electricity usage but not gas (due to the way the comms work as above).  So any vulnerable customer not paying attention and/or not realising this, will have an IHD that's telling them they're spending far far less than they really are.

Our device, which as described is actually only reporting electricity usage, says we use around £40 a week but it's actually more than double that with gas usage added.