Scottish Power will not return almost £3000 credit

icscv15

This is is just a quick post to warn users who pay their Scottish Power bill by direct  debit or who are thinking of doing so. Please keep a close eye on the amount of credit you build up as Scottish Power will make it AS DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE for you to reclaim this credit. I asked them on 2nd September to refund almost £3000 of credit and as of 16th October - six weeks later !! - I am still waiting for it.

Here is the detailed account of what happened:

In November of last year, my mother, who is 81 and suffering from Alzheimer's, had to go into a care home and I took charge of her financial affairs as lasting power of attorney. Her house has been empty since November and is just about to be sold so you can imagine  my shock when I found that Scottish Power had allowed her account to become £2840.93 in credit !!!  Worse than that it had been over £2000 in credit since the start of the year ! The first thing I  did was to cancel the direct debit. The next thing I did was to demand the credit be returned.

On 2nd September I made a formal complaint against Scottish Power and told them to pay the credit into my mother's bank account (they already had the details for this). On returning from holiday a fortnight later I has shocked but not completely surprised that the money had not been paid into the bank account but worse was still to come - the £2840.93 had disappeared from the Scottish Power account !  

I immediately contacted Scottish Power about this and they said a cheque had been sent to my mother's - now empty - house against my express wishes. Just think about that again: they thought it was a good idea to send a cheque for almost THREE THOUSAND POUNDS to an empty house as ordinary (not recorded delivery) post despite BEING TOLD NOT TO. As soon as I could I went round to discover a pile of unopened mail in the hallway but NO CHEQUE FROM SCOTTISH POWER !!! Scottish Power are adamant that the cheque was sent but I am equally adamant that the are LYING and did not send it. Why else would the cheque not have been cashed if stolen ? If it was stolen why was other important mail not taken as well. Clearly Scottish Power had no intention of sending that cheque.

After much to-ing and fro-ing Scottish Power eventually agreed to cancel the cheque and transfer the money direct to my mother's bank account (why couldn't they have done that originally ?). However first I had to send them the account details so they could confirm them (why ?). More delays ... but at least there was progress.  Just when I thought I'd finally sorted things out, Scottish Power decided they'd put another hurdle in the way and said they could only return the money if a direct debit was set up first. UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE !!! Funny isn't how I can transfer money to another account just by logging into my online bank account and clicking away on the laptop but one of the country's large companies can't.  I believe that they are again lying and this is just  another delaying tactic.

Obviously I wasn't going to trust this lot with a direct debit so I took them up on the their offer to send the cheque by recorded delivery to my address (although this will mean a 16 mile trip to the nearest branch of my mother's bank to pay it in). That was last week... The cheque still has not turned up and the credit has again disappeared from the Scottish Power account. In other words, after SIX WEEKS after I first contacted them, I am back to square one.

I fully expect Scottish Power NOT to return they credit and I will have to take this to the ombudsman. It is very clear that they will be do anything they can to avoid repaying customers despite this being a legal obligation on them.

I would be very interested to hear if anyone else has had similar problems. I will be sending the link to this to Scottish Power so that they have their right to reply (FAO Scottish Power - it's Complaint no. 8395694532/40). Somehow I doubt I wll hear from them ...

Robin9

Just checking -  have you been through SP's complaint procedure ?


and have you POA ?

EssexHebridean

OP does say that they are acting under their Mum's LPA. 

As an aside, it sounds like in this instance the OP's Mum would have benefited from some intervention a little sooner on their finances and in particular their energy bills. SP haven't "allowed" the account to get into that amount of credit, that has simply happened because a DD was set and less energy was being used than was presumed by the level of that DD. Currently it's not clear whether the DD was excessively high, or whether the credit is simply as a result of the house being empty and perhaps also because estimated readings are being used. 

Gerry1

icscv15 said:

Obviously I wasn't going to trust this lot with a direct debit so I took them up on the their offer to send the cheque by recorded delivery to my address (although this will mean a 16 mile trip to the nearest branch of my mother's bank to pay it in).

Can you not pay it in at a Post Office or via the banking app (by taking a photo of the cheque)?

p00hsticks

Gerry1 said:

icscv15 said:

Obviously I wasn't going to trust this lot with a direct debit so I took them up on the their offer to send the cheque by recorded delivery to my address (although this will mean a 16 mile trip to the nearest branch of my mother's bank to pay it in).

Can you not pay it in at a Post Office or via the banking app (by taking a photo of the cheque)?

probably not the latter for a cheque of that amount - my bank has a limit of (I think) £1000 on the app for photoing cheques

icscv15

Thanks for the quick responses. In short

- I have POA/LPA for my mother and this is registered with SP.

- SP have been provided with accurate meter readings. In spite of that they have not adjusted the direct debits and have allowed the credit to increase from c. £2000 at the start of 2024. They are clearly taking advantage of a vulnerable elderly lady existing on a meagre pension.

- Yes I've logged this as a Formal Complaint as per SPs complaints procedure and will be escalating it to Ofgem at  the start of November.

- I have tried the Barclays Banking app (unfortunately my mother had the extreme misfortune to bank with them) - it point blank refuses to work. The nearest branch is 16 miles away as stated and when I tried to pay in a refund cheque from United Utilites there in person, the machine didn't accept it. This is all moot though as I still have not received a cheque from SP to actually pay in !!!

I have received an email today (16th November) from them saying there are further delays (unspecified) and they STILL have not sent the cheque.

As I said it is clear they are doing everything they can to return this money. I look forward with interest to what they have to say about this post.

EssexHebridean

They won't say anything about this post I shouldn't think, as they are extremely unlikely to see it. There are pretty much no industry accounts here these days - I think the Land Registry is one of the last to actively engage on an organisation level here now? 

thebullsback

Dreadful company to get money back from SP are truly Canny Scots .I had to threaten court action to get my money back .This after lovely friendly chats on the phone giving sympathy and promises of back in your account tomorrow stuff .
You have to chase them through the Scottish courts .There used to be a very long thread on here about other peoples misery with this lot. 

43722

Today is October 16, not November 16.

icscv15

Correction - yes 16th October. 

I've sent them the link to this page but obviously SP won't reply as they know they are in the wrong. The fobbed me off with a rubbish excuse on TrustPilot and didn't reply to my reply to them (see uk.trustpilot.com /review/www.scottishpower.co.uk, Updated 7th October).

matt_drummer

Is a refund of £2,840.93 actually due?

Have all charges been applied to the account?

When did SP last have accurate meter readings from you?

As the house is not sold it will still be incurring some costs, how much are these?


Employees at a large company like this cannot just refund what you ask for without carrying out full and proper checks to ensure they don't refund more than they should.

If they just refunded you all that you asked for what could they do if it turned out they refunded too much?

It takes time, a company like this doesn't have employees sitting around waiting for a situation like this to come up.

They shouldn't have told you they have issued a refund if they hadn't.

They probably do need a direct debit instruction to make refunds directly to a bank account. Employees can't just go to SP's bank account and make payments whenever they like without following a process.

It takes time, you need to be patient.

It is not SP's fault that the account is the the shape it is and they need time to carry out appropriate checks to establish the correct position.

I'm sure it is frustrating but sometimes you need to put yourself in the other side position.

I'm sure you are honest and would pay whatever was due to SP but not everybody is, they need to make sure they don't refund too much and not be able to recover what is due to them.