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

glasgow_DFW

eira wrote: »

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.


This sounds like you were paying by direct debit and that your account was estimated and when they did get an actual reading the true usage in you property was known. Its not so much they were under charging you more you were under paying for the energy that you had used. Sp then set the dd to an amount to clear the balance and cover your calcualted annual usage. All the statment you would have recived in that time would have told you that they were estiamated. If I recav an estimated statment I take my readings and call or email them in (even if the estiamts are close the the actual readings.)
Once the debt was clear from the account the dd should have been set to your annual usage at current prices. This is best informtion that you can have when calling abount your direct debit two readings from about a year apart go through the calcualtion hay presto DD amount.


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 you dont give your final readings to the outgoing supplier the incomeing supplier dose. They should obtan the readings from you this will mena that your accounts will open/close on the same readings and you will not be billed twice for the same energy.

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.

When I left SP the same thing happend the explantion, we now have access to to much informtion that we do not understand. As the dual fuel account is closed the dd for that ends, the dual fuel account is closed as the gas and electrclty can leave at difrent times and the final meter readings (that close the gas and electrclty account can come on diffrnet days.) So you will have the two direct debits one for teh gas and elec but the amount taken will be the same as the old dual fuel amount so the date and the amount of the dd has not changed so no need to send out any notification. When the outgoing supplier gets the final meter readings (can take a while after the date of transfer for this to happen) a final statment for whichever utilaty will be sent with your final banalnce and the date that the direct debit will be taken as the dd had changed and the date they have notified you as is requred with a direct debit.

eira

Thanks for that-it does make sense but that's not the way Scottish Power explained it.I can see the rationale totally but it's the cavalier approach to the opening of what were brand new DD that's got me. This was at the end of months of not knowing what they would take out in payment. And the Dual Fuel DD was still live until I closed it-at one time there were three DD running on the account.

Will have to see what their'case for the ombudsman' consists of.

TangledMemories_2

**Update**
Well, I have just put my letter of complaint in the post to SP.
Also sent in a scanned copy of EVERY receipt proving how much messing about I had to do with the godforsaken meter and a scanned copy of the card United Utilites left me advising I was in credit and my final meter reading.
Letter was 2 pages long - that's a record for me.

Now starts the waiting game,....

Thanks for all your advice and good luck to Eira!

eira

Thanks for the good wishes-and good luck to you too.