Scottish Power - switched from fixed tariff and rebilled for the last twelve months?

nyermen

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone else has seen the same thing?  I fixed my energy with Scottish Power back in 2021 until december 2023.  Last week I got a set of emails notifying of bill changes, followed by a big bill (£500).  Looking at the app, I can see they’ve cancelled all my previous bills for the last year and recalculated them using their standard variable tariff.

I can’t think of any reason why this would have happened (are they allowed to just cancel a tariff?  And even if they can, presumably they cant then retrospectively rebill you?!).

I see their website seems to be down for technical issues when I try to login, but if this is widespread I’d have expected to see more threads?

Thanks for reading,

Peter.

Alnat1

Try a different browser to access SP. I check out my dad's account and have to use Chrome to log in for some reason.

CSI_Yorkshire

A lot of suppliers said (in about August last year) that they would be changing customers off fixed tariffs onto the EPG-subsidised standard variable tariff unless you contacted them to refuse the option.

nyermen

CSI_Yorkshire said:

A lot of suppliers said (in about August last year) that they would be changing customers off fixed tariffs onto the EPG-subsidised standard variable tariff unless you contacted them to refuse the option.

Interesting, I missed that memo if so.
I still wouldn’t have thought they could cancel my bills including from March this year (which mentions my tariff “Fixed December 2023”) and replace them with a much higher tariff, and do this all the way back to July 2022.

The website is saying down for maintenance on my ipad.  I’ll try chrome later when I’m at my laptop.

Alnat1

CSI_Yorkshire said:

A lot of suppliers said (in about August last year) that they would be changing customers off fixed tariffs onto the EPG-subsidised standard variable tariff unless you contacted them to refuse the option.

They should only have done this if the fixed prices were higher than the government price cap. What were the rates on the fix?

nyermen

Alnat1 said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

A lot of suppliers said (in about August last year) that they would be changing customers off fixed tariffs onto the EPG-subsidised standard variable tariff unless you contacted them to refuse the option.

They should only have done this if the fixed prices were higher than the government price cap. What were the rates on the fix?

Thanks for noting that - better than the cap (otherwise the bill changes wouldn’t have raised an additional £500 bill).
They were more expensive when I fixed (unsurprisingly) but when prices shot up, I was much better off.

Tariff: Help beat cancer green fixed december 2023
Gas: 6.052p / kwh & 26.43p per day
Electricity: 24.101p / kwh & 24.52p per day.

They seem to have rebilled the last year to their standard variable that the last of the corrected bills shows as:
Gas: 10.832p / kwh & 31.93p per day
Electricity: 36.081p / kwh & 47.95p per day

Huge difference…

CSI_Yorkshire

Alnat1 said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

A lot of suppliers said (in about August last year) that they would be changing customers off fixed tariffs onto the EPG-subsidised standard variable tariff unless you contacted them to refuse the option.

They should only have done this if the fixed prices were higher than the government price cap. What were the rates on the fix?

It reportedly happened to some where only one of the four components was higher than the cap (after max discount applied).  And I agree, a Dec 2021 fix should be lower and wouldn't have needed an EPG modification.

nyermen said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

A lot of suppliers said (in about August last year) that they would be changing customers off fixed tariffs onto the EPG-subsidised standard variable tariff unless you contacted them to refuse the option.

Interesting, I missed that memo if so.
I still wouldn’t have thought they could cancel my bills including from March this year (which mentions my tariff “Fixed December 2023”) and replace them with a much higher tariff, and do this all the way back to July 2022.

The website is saying down for maintenance on my ipad.  I’ll try chrome later when I’m at my laptop.

They could retrospectively apply a tariff switch, which would have the effect that you're talking about.  Normally done when they failed to put you on a tariff that you asked for.  Would seem very strange to do it this late though, so I don't think that's what happened here.

Joyful

The only reason I can think of is if you perhaps didnt follow through on the tariff info. Some tariffs say you should have a smart meter.  If not then I would contact them to say you disagree.

nyermen

Thanks - i'll call them tomorrow (the down for maintenance bit im assuming is why i couldnt get through today).
It sounds like something has gone wrong.

Do have smart meters, and they give daily readings at least (signal is sketchy so sometimes I can see the no signal light is flashing).

nyermen

Just an update for what its worth:
- Website "maintenance" completed and I was then able to login, also called them to try and find out why they've done this.
- In fact, they totally reversed the tariff and recalculated all bills onto their standard variable tariff all the way back to late 2021 (presumably the date when I originally picked that fixed tariff)
- Person I spoke to on the call had a look, couldn't see why it has happened etc, wrote everything up, and said only option was to raise a complaint which has now been done.  Call took over an hour (after initial hold time).
- Mean time it was made clear that the contested balance had to be paid or else.  Despite clearly seeing there was something wrong, they even repeatedly tried to give me information on contacting step change "to help me manage my finances" (at no point had I said I was unable to pay, just that I believed the outstanding balance was wrong).

So I've had to pay it (I'm remortgaging soon, so I don't want any issues credit record wise) and presumably will have a fight to get it back (since based on my use, I would be in credit until christmas assuming its wrong).  Mean time I'll wait for the complaint to be looked at ...