Scotish Power price fall sneeky change of contract !!!

james.wardle

Hi

I have my electricity and gas with Scottish power on their price fall contract.

This means I pay a slight premium for gas electricity, but the price is guarantied not to rise for a year and may fall if wholesale prices drop.

I have just received a letter with some small print changes to the contract one of them says

"If we increase the price to your significant disadvantage we will notify you within 65 working days of the increase"

Now the question is clearly Scottish power plan to put prices up later in the year, hence the change of Tic’s I pay a premium to guaranty prices will not rise, does this change of T&C represent an unfair contract under the sale of good act?

Scottish power reserves the right to change to T&C at any time, but is there anything I can do about the change of contact? can i write to scotish power rejecting the change in T&C?

Thanks

James

Plushchris

I would imagine that means they will write to you 65 days before they put the price up in November (which is when Price fall is capped until)

Cant imagine they will put the price up on the price fall tariff.

Terrylw1

Check your T&C's or contact them.

When you see this in other Supplier contracts they tend to give you 15 days to switch Supplier to avoid the increase.

Beyond that, there is nothing you can do. It will happen to every customer.

hollydays

What also caught my eye here was the note telling me they were changing the wording of their t&cs from "working days" to "Working Days".!!!!!!!!!

bristolleedsfan

Im on online energy 4, i received same notification, does this mean that when Scottish Power announce its price rises they wont come into effect for 65 days.

Cardew

Could it just be that they send out 'standard letters' to all their customers - and to some(like yourself) the change in conditions doesn't apply?

For instance I have been on BG 'fixed to April 30 2010' for the past couple of years and I get letters that have no relevance to my tariff.

If SP did try to renege on your deal, energywatch and the Regulator would be on them like a ton of bricks!

SwanJon

Think this is a change from Ofgem - suppliers now only have to inform you within 65 days.
As such suppliers are changing their T&Cs, but will still inform you as soon as they can, but now have a bit more leaway.

wakeupalarm

I had this letter too with the key sentence "If we increase the price to your significant disadvantage we will notify you within 65 working days of the increase"

What I think it means, is that they can change their prices up but they have to inform you within 65 working days. 65 working days is 13 weeks or 3 months.

So they could anounce a change from tomorrow, and as long as they inform you within the next 3 months, the're okay and not breaking the rules.

harryhound

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=642621&page=9
See post #164.

[I've put a "pricefall" reminder on "Tart Alert"]

GONAD_2

It was a standard letter; the Price Fall tariff won't be increasing before November 2008. Smarter people ignored the traffic light system and switched to this tariff just before SP closed it to new customers.