About to sue Scottish Power

GDB2222

At the beginning of February, Scottish Power failed to install two smart meters - electricity and gas. They therefore ought to have paid me the GSOP payments, which amount to £30 per meter. (They haven't.)

Reading reg 8 of The Electricity and Gas (Standards of Performance) (Suppliers) Regulations 2015, 8.3 says that they must pay the £30 within 10 working days, or else they have to pay an extra £30 per meter. 

Have I understood correctly that they now owe me £120, rather than £60?

I have sent a LBA, so the next step is just to issue proceeding, but I would like to get the amount correct.

Incidentally, their customer service is appalling. I don't recommend them, at all. 

Mstty

Did you raise a complaint, wait 8 weeks (or receive a deadlock letter) and take it to the ombudsman service? 

That's the normal process but let us know how the LBA goes?

[Deleted User]

GDB2222 said:

At the beginning of February, Scottish Power failed to install two smart meters - electricity and gas. They therefore ought to have paid me the GSOP payments, which amount to £30 per meter. (They haven't.)

Reading reg 8 of The Electricity and Gas (Standards of Performance) (Suppliers) Regulations 2015, 8.3 says that they must pay the £30 within 10 working days, or else they have to pay an extra £30 per meter. 

Have I understood correctly that they now owe me £120, rather than £60?

I have sent a LBA, so the next step is just to issue proceeding, but I would like to get the amount correct.

Incidentally, their customer service is appalling. I don't recommend them, at all. 

Where has the £30 per meter interpretation come from? It is £30 for a missed appointment. 

macman

Did they actually make the appointments and then break them?
Smart meters are normally installed in one visit, not a visit for each meter.

GDB2222

It was one appointment, but two meters. Am I misinterpreting the regs?

GDB2222

Mstty said:

Did you raise a complaint, wait 8 weeks (or receive a deadlock letter) and take it to the ombudsman service? 

That's the normal process but let us know how the LBA goes?

Why would I do that, if I can issue proceedings far more quickly? 

MWT

GDB2222 said:

Have I understood correctly that they now owe me £120, rather than £60?

It would be £60 if they made an appointment to replace both meters and then failed to keep it, or to notify you more than 24 hours before the appointment that it needed to change.

It would be £120 if they made two separate appointments, one for each meter, and then failed to keep both and failed to notify you that both would need to change more than 24 hours before the appointment..

You should be using their complaints procedure rather than and LBA though ...

Xbigman

If you go to court without using the company complaints procedure first the court case will fail. You must give the company you are suing a chance to sort the problem out and the court recognizes the company complaint procedure as that chance. It does not recognize 'X' number of emails/phone calls. Maybe it should but it doesn't. You don't have to go to the Ombudsman once the complaint gets to the 8 week point but in light of the above it is far easier and quicker to make an official complaint and then go to the Ombudsman.  


Darren

[Deleted User]

GDB2222 said:

It was one appointment, but two meters. Am I misinterpreting the regs?

Yes. The meters are not faulty they are just being replaced with smart meters. From the Scottish Power website:

[Deleted User]

Also backed up by a past Ofgem investigation into BG:

‘British Gas has compensated affected customers in full (£30 for initial failed appointment and £30 for not paying customers within the required 10 days).  In addition, British Gas has paid an extra £30 to each affected customer. British Gas has paid a total of £1.1 million to compensate affected customers.  

Due to these actions, Ofgem has agreed to this redress package with British Gas and is not taking formal enforcement action. ‘

Mstty

GDB2222 said:

Mstty said:

Did you raise a complaint, wait 8 weeks (or receive a deadlock letter) and take it to the ombudsman service? 

That's the normal process but let us know how the LBA goes?

Why would I do that, if I can issue proceedings far more quickly? 

I read this as the issue was early Feb and we are now end of March so that's nearly 8 weeks. I would have complained at the time in Feb and be ready now to open a very simple case with the ombudsman service.