Scottish Power duplicated exactly my bill (which I had paid)

JASu

1. I received a quarterly bill from Scottish Power in at the end of Sept which I paid early October.

2. Early Dec, I received another bill (which was exactly the same) which I paid within 3 days of receipt.

3. At the time I didn't check the bill thoroughly as I was trying to deal with a distressing bereavement.

4. It is only today, when filing the bills away that I noticed the duplication!

5. At first I thought Scottish Power would have noted this and either (a) write to me and return the overpayment with an apology for billing me twice for the same period and same price or (b) deduct the overpayment from my next bill received 23/12/24.  They have done neither!

I can't believe I am the only one that has had this situation, either hard copy bills or on-line?

Can anyone advise further ie., in addition to getting a refund, am I entitled to compensation for their error?

Thank you.

QrizB

Refund: yes. Your account might already be in credit by this amount.

Compensation: no.

What losses have you incurred as a result of this error?

JASu

Thank you for your reply.

1) Account not been credited or adjusted for overpayment.

2) Loss, interest on money being in a savings account.

matt_drummer

JASu said:

2) Loss, interest on money being in a savings account.

Probably not as much as you have lost by paying your bills on receipt?

If you had a DD in place it probably would not have happened.

QrizB

JASu said:

2) Loss, interest on money being in a savings account.

If the bill was £200, and that £200 had instead been in a savings account paying 5%, you'll have missed out on less than £1 of interest.

You need to contact Scottish Power and explain their error. I'm sure they have a complaints process, follow that.

As an aside, you'll pay less for your energy if you pay by Direct Debit rather than paying on receipt of bill.

mmmmikey

Hi - sorry to hear about the bereavement. It would be a good idea to contact Scottish Power about this and explain what has happened. Assuming the original payment has been processed (i.e. it has gone out of your bank account) there's a possibility it hasn't been applied to your account. This isn't necessarily down to SP - e.g. depending on how you paid it may be that you transposed digits on an account number or some such error. Or the problem could be at their end. Managing your account online and/or paying by direct debit both reduce the possibility of this kind of error happening (at either end) as well as making it easier to see what's happening when things do go awry which invariably happens from time to time.

Gerry1

If you want to avoid credit building up, switch to Variable Direct Debit.

It's cheaper than paying on receipt of bill and avoid problems if you forget to pay because you are abroad or in hospital etc.