Scottish Power trying to charge me £20 for gas I haven't used!

TangledMemories_2

Hi All,

Am sooooo angry it's untrue!

When we moved in February, both the gas and electric were with SP on card meters. I rang up to ask them to switch me to normal meters due to my partner's disability meaning constant central heating is a must for us. I was advised that it would cost me £125 per meter to be switched over - at which point they got told where to stick it! Rang another supplier who are not going to charge me for the switch and would start the supplier-changeover straight away.

Anyhoo, my grandfather kindly put £20 of gas on the card for us as a start. When I put the card in the meter - to cut a long story short - it turned out I was paying the previous tennant's debt of £350! I spent 2 long weeks on the phone to SP getting them to reset the meter and have 20 receipts for credits made to the meter in the meantime.:mad:

On 7th April my new supplier took over my gas supply and sent out their replacement card. On 14th April, the meter was changed to a normal one. When the engineer removed the old meter, he made a note of the reading and also advised me I was owed £10.00 which was leftover credit.
On Thursday, I receive a bill from SP telling me I owe them £25 for gas up to 6th April. :eek:

How can this be so?! My meter was constantly in credit, never went into the emergency credit and the debt for the previous tennant was finally cleared off the meter in March! (I have checked this numerous times on the relevant screens on the meter).:mad:

To make it even better, their "investigations" department rang me to discuss this and not only tried telling me I didn't know my own date of birth (according to them I was born in 1981 - yet my mum, the hospital and the registry office all swear blind it was 1984!!!:p) but also that I had an attitude problem (after I asked them to explain how they reached their decision that I owe them £25).

Any advice on how to take this further?

Tang
xx

Horace

Rather than speaking to them on the phone - try writing to their customer service department.

eira

Am currently in a battle with Scottish Power about unauthorised DDs.I tried complaining to EnergyWatch-that's the first port of call. But that got me nowhere so have now gone to the Ombudsman.EnergyWatch have done something in the past-but Scottish Power proved an unending nightmare. And-little consolation I klnow-but I found them patronising and intimidating (or they tried to be).I have settled my bill with them but the DD saga rumbles on.

TangledMemories_2

Thanks for that, but the thing is. I spoke to my current provider about this and they said that the only way I could owe SP for gas would be if they had put me on the card meter due to failure to pay a bill. This isn't the case.

Once I've calmed down, I'm going to start my letter to them.
Eira, you're right about them being patronising. They were asking me when I was going to be at home because they needed me to be in front of the meter. When I asked them what is the use in that because you aren't my supplier and this is a brand new meter installed last week - the guy had such an attitude problem and was talking over me so much I hung up on him!

Horace

Writing to them helps, I have been with Scottish Power since 2006 when I moved into my flat (everyone else in my block is with NPower). SP were the only people available to install a meter at the time otherwise I would have been lumbered with NPower.

I have found Scottish Power to be extremely helpful especially after I wrote to them when I received a bill for over a £1000. The meters in my block were eventually moved to a cupboard in the basement but they had been incorrectly labelled by NPower and this was discovered when they came to cut one of their customers off and cut me off instead:mad: Eventually, I got the whole sorry business sorted out with Scottish Power and all the time my complaint was handled by a lovely lady called Jackie Plant, she rang me when she said she would, etc. I never paid the £1000 either because it appeared that I was paying someone else's bill. Energywatch were a waste of time to be truthful and it was laughable because NPower contacted me last week to say that the problem had been sorted out - I could have told them that as Scottish Power actually sorted the problem out in January.

I have just had my bill for the winter quarter - I owe £2.55 - I have been paying £25 a month and I am due to increase my standing order to £26 a month to accommodate the price increase. I dont have any gas in my flat and use electricity for everything.

I am sure if you write a polite letter to their customer service dept then you will get a positive response.

eira

Thanks TangledMemories.It was only a reply to my previous posting on these forums about Scottish Power that gave me a reply that actually made sense of the situation.But Scottish Power still won't explain the DD situation-I got a written reply that stated they had 'made their case' and asking me what I 'wanted'. The same as ever an explanation as to the rationale for opening up brand new DD without authorisation or permission. The bloke I spoke to even suggested that my bank was trying to sully their reputation and that they had no understanding of the DD system !! Total White Rabbit land

MABLE

Well I must be one of the lucky ones when it comes to Scottish Power. Been with them for a year now and have an online account that requires me to pay by DD each month. In all that times I have never experienced any problems and the DD has always gone through smoothly.

I find we only hear one side of the story and normally turns out to be biased. Sometime when problems do occur the customer may have done something to trigger a chain of events and in particular when paying by DD.

eira

I can assure you I did nothing to 'trigger problems'. I always paid/entered meter readings etc. I expected variable DD-within reason-but it suddenly went from £110 to £265 a month because they had been undercharging me. After EnergyWatch intervention they opted for a longer repayment period and £175 a month. When the debt was paid off they reviewed the DD because of' price increases ' but they took the £175 as a starting point. It took EnergyWatch and three weeks of hassle to get them to understand that the £175 had £35 of debt repayment on it-and given that the arrears was their fault in the first place. The proposed DD sum was then £136/then £120/then £110 followed by a £100. In the meantime they owed me money that they wouldn't refund (well over £150) At that point I couldn't take anymore and switched suppliers-and then the rest of the saga emerged.

I owe them no money/I triggered no problems. If you look online you will find that there are many customers who have had DD issues with this company and they can't all have 'triggered problems'

glasgow_DFW

Eira, are you DD problems to do with the final direct debits on your account when you switched supplier?
"because they had been undercharging me."? how had they been under chagring you were you on the wrong tariff and then rebilled or was your account estimated and when an agtual reading was obtained your account was brought up to date.

owed me money that they wouldn't refund ... Was your account billed up to date did you call up provide the meter readings and then have the refund issued. I have done this with all the diffrent energy suppliers( i have had) no problems. I have been advised to leave credit in the account when I have requested it before the winter but never have i been ponint blank refused. So did you see an estamted statment showing £150 of credit call up to request it and when the person said that they can't without up to date meter readings you took that as arefusal to refund you your money?

glasgow_DFW

TangledMemories, would recomend wrighting to them requesting the following information

1 the opening reading they have for you.
2 the closing reading
3 a list of the payments to the account and the split between dept payment and payment for the energy used.

it could be that the closing reading was an estimat for teh date of transfer and this was higher than the amount that had been paid into the meter.

eira

Had been paying by DD-initially the service was good.But two years down the line they announced that I had been undercharged for 14 months.I'll admit I find the tariffs so confusing I had left the DD amounts up to them. It was after this that things went seriously haywire.Energywatch intervention sorted out the arrears payment issue and then things settled down again. But when the arrears were paid off they wanted that bill plus the arrears payment plus the price rise-and that's when things got really bad.


Their claim is that they 'didn't open new DD' that this was a split of payment into gas and electric following account closure.This seems reasonable and I was perfectly happy to pay the bills-had I been able to enter the meter readings and check them. But the account access was closed, 2 brand new DD were set up on my account with no authorisation or notification. Had I not found out and closed them would this have meant that the money would have been taken out at a time convenient to Scottish Power-I wouldn't have known the amount or the timing.It's this I am disputing. there was also a live Dual Fuel DD on the account already.

Scottish Power deny these are new DD but according to my bank and the Banking Ombudsman these are DD and they are new. I am obviously not too bright but I can't see why I couldn't have had access to handing over final readings/getting the final bill/ and paying by cheque or debit card.