Add your feedback on energy supplier Scottish Power

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  • joe134
    joe134 Posts: 3,336 Forumite
    Anthorn wrote: »
    however for dual fuel

    Not true: As I've reported in other threads, I just checked MSE CEC and uSwitch searching specifically for Scottish Power and the Super Saver Dec 19 B5 is not listed. The cheapest Scottish Power tariff in my region, Eastern, is Online Fixed Price Energy December 2019. You could however continue to claim that the B5 tariff is still available in your region as you've done in other threads.

    In the eastern region for dual fuel and including Warm Home Discount, as listed by uSwitch, the Scottish Power 0nline Fixed Price Energy December 2019 is beaten by First Utility, Lumo, Bristol Energy (three times), EDF, Powershop, Npower, Zebra and British Gas. Evident therefore that Scottish Power has ceased to be competitive.
    Indeed , I have just looked on uswitch, and as you say, dec19 is their cheapest Now.
    They never have been cheap in my area, that’s why I’m looking to switch.
    I was on b5 until the 23rd, and they switched me back at my request I also said, that their b5 tariff was only £5 cheaper than dec19 in my area, that’s why I switched back.
    They changed me to b5 on their chat line, and back.
    It obviously has been taken off my area only recently.
    They are not cheap, never said they were, today edf are coming near the top for me, that’s new, it wasn’t there yesterday.
    £1098 as to £1230 with SP.
    They change daily.
  • joe134
    joe134 Posts: 3,336 Forumite
    Hengus wrote: »
    Their e-mail responses are most certainly coming from somewhere where English is not the respondent's first language. This is typical of the responses that I was getting from SP having told them we legally completed on a new build property in July:

    Quote: Having checked the records as I can see that the period of 29th March 18 to 26th July 18 is in a different name, hence, I would request you to provide the sale deed so that we can amend our records as the tenancy period involves more than 1 year Unquote

    As far as customer service performance is concerned, their website shows the following:

    Calls answered in Sep 18 - 458207

    Contact First Time Resolution - 72%

    Response time - 94 secs average

    Responding to web contacts and e-mails in less than 48 hours - 30%

    Responding to correspondence in less than 5 days - 33%

    For those who might be interested, SP's Annual Complaint Report is here:

    https://www.scottishpower.co.uk/about-us/performance/complaintsperformance/annual-complaints-report
    I have no idea where their e mails come from,I have never used it, I speak to them on the phone,or chat line.
    Why use e mail when I can phone the number I have given, in Warrington.
    Does it matter where the chat line or e mail is based, as long as they are efficient when contacted, as I can testify in MY case.
    I would not have stayed 20 years if they weren’t ,irrespective of the bad press a while ago.
    Speak as you find.
  • System
    System Posts: 178,077
    Photogenic Name Dropper First Post
    Community Admin
    joe134 wrote: »
    Why use e mail when I can phone the number I have given, in Warrington.

    Speak as you find.

    Because when things go awry it provides a clear correspondence trail between the supplier and the consumer. My experience of SP is that they have failed to provide me with a Final Bill some 4 months after I switched away from their Deemed Supply to a new supplier. This puts them in breach of their Supply Licence obligation 27.17. Inter alia, SP was ‘fined’ £18M by Ofgem for this failing in April 2016. Speak as one finds: I totally agree. That said, I accept that many consumers may well have a different experience.
  • joe134
    joe134 Posts: 3,336 Forumite
    Hengus wrote: »
    Because when things go awry it provides a clear correspondence trail between the supplier and the consumer. My experience of SP is that they have failed to provide me with a Final Bill some 4 months after I switched away from their Deemed Supply to a new supplier. This puts them in breach of their Supply Licence obligation 27.17. Inter alia, SP was ‘fined’ £18M by Ofgem for this failing in April 2016. Speak as one finds: I totally agree. That said, I accept that many consumers may well have a different experience.
    Tell me a company that is not up to expectations.
    This forum is full of them.
    Just looked at edf, not exactly A1.
    Are any of the big six!
    Now the smaller boys are following suit, except, they are just going bust overnight !


    You can please some of the people, etc.
  • Anthorn
    Anthorn Posts: 4,362
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
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    joe134 wrote: »
    today edf are coming near the top for me, that’s new, it wasn’t there yesterday.
    £1098 as to £1230 with SP.
    They change daily.

    EDF Easy Online Dec 19 disappeared because it ended but reappeared as Easy Online v2. As far as I know the v2 is similar to the original.

    As far as I know the Easy Online tariff is not broker exclusive although it is marked as "exclusive" on several comparison sites and is available direct from EDF. In which case the cash back from topcashback applies: £100. At the time of writing that offer expires in two days. Do your calculations and comparison before you switch.
    https://www.topcashback.co.uk/edf-energy/
  • hybernia
    hybernia Posts: 390
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    Forumite
    joe134 wrote: »
    I have no idea where their e mails come from,I have never used it, I speak to them on the phone,or chat line.
    Why use e mail when I can phone the number I have given, in Warrington.
    Does it matter where the chat line or e mail is based, as long as they are efficient when contacted, as I can testify in MY case.
    I would not have stayed 20 years if they weren’t ,irrespective of the bad press a while ago. Speak as you find.

    Joe: Agreed. Family members can only speak well of SP in terms of the service received during their time with it. I have no doubt that such is the experience of others. Where things go wrong though -- and this thread is pretty much filled with such instances -- is not during the period of supply but at the beginning or end of supply.

    In our family's case, requested final meter readings were provided at the time of switching. But SP's final statement bore no relation to them. Instead, the company issued a massively over-inflated bill based entirely on its own estimated readings.

    The course you advocate following -- just telephone CS, why bother with emails? -- was adopted, and an exceedingly helpful CS rep not only listened carefully to what she was being told, she also called up on-screen the historic record of the customer account.

    It was obvious from that, she said, that the final statement showed a pattern of consumption that in no way corresponded to the historic record. She had no idea why the actual readings provided to SP had been substituted with completely different estimated readings. She made a note of those original readings (these had been kept on file by the family) and said the bill was now. . . suspended. An accurate bill, based on the re-submitted original readings, would be sent out within 28 days.

    But no revised bill was forthcoming within 28 days. Nor in 2 months. Only 3 months later did a letter arrive by post from the Head of Customer Services saying that if the bill was not paid within 14 days, Court action would be instituted which could have serious consequences for the credit record of the individual concerned.

    The bill wasn't actually attached. It came by separate mail a few days later. It had never been corrected. It had never been suspended. It was headed FINAL DEMAND in bright red letters and its terseness was calculated to intimidate as much as inform.

    As it was obvious that the oh-so-easy-to-make-a-telephone-call you mention was actually worthless, the matter was now pursued by email.

    Though reference was repeatedly made in that correspondence to the content of the CS phone conversation, not a single SP response made mention of that. Though reference was made to the unambiguous telephone assurance that the bill was wrong, the estimated readings were wrong, and the bill had been suspended pending the preparation of a new, accurate bill, not a single email response from SP acknowledged that reality.

    Illiterate, unhelpful and incoherent as SP's emails so often were, at least the threatening letters from the debt collection agency to which SP handed over the matter were crystal clear. Pay up or face the consequences.

    Not every family has within its ranks a practicing solicitor so I appreciate, our family was lucky in that regard and a letter from him to the debt collection agency was sufficient to make it clear that it, not our family, would face some serious consequences if it continued to send letters and make phone calls about an unproven debt at the heart of an issue which the energy company itself knew to be still in dispute.

    Thereafter, all the written correspondence, including that from SP's debt collection agency, was bundled up and passed to the Energy Ombudsman service. Subsequent to that, SP made a grudging apology, withdrew the bill, refunded the balance of the account which the company itself actually owed, and paid compensation.

    And its apology? "The situation unfortunately arose due to difficulties experienced with a new IT system".

    Apparently, that same non-excuse was trotted out time and again by Scottish Power to customers treated with similar contempt, this despite the obvious fact that it wasn't an IT failing that resulted in the company's behaviour but a sustained abandonment of ethical business practice.

    For that reason, then, you can see how much I agree with your point about "speak as you find". But I would still advise that, on the subject of speaking, no-one should ever speak to SP.

    Had it not been for that fully documented correspondence trail, our family members would've been left with nothing more substantial than flimsy notes of telephone conversations which SP could have chosen to claim had never existed -- after all, that's exactly the corporate stance it adopted in its pursuit of money to which it was never entitled: the studied avoidance of inconvenient truth. . .
  • joe134
    joe134 Posts: 3,336 Forumite
    edited 1 December 2018 at 1:19PM
    hybernia wrote: »
    Joe: Agreed. Family members can only speak well of SP in terms of the service received during their time with it. I have no doubt that such is the experience of others. Where things go wrong though -- and this thread is pretty much filled with such instances -- is not during the period of supply but at the beginning or end of supply.

    In our family's case, requested final meter readings were provided at the time of switching. But SP's final statement bore no relation to them. Instead, the company issued a massively over-inflated bill based entirely on its own estimated readings.

    The course you advocate following -- just telephone CS, why bother with emails? -- was adopted, and an exceedingly helpful CS rep not only listened carefully to what she was being told, she also called up on-screen the historic record of the customer account.

    It was obvious from that, she said, that the final statement showed a pattern of consumption that in no way corresponded to the historic record. She had no idea why the actual readings provided to SP had been substituted with completely different estimated readings. She made a note of those original readings (these had been kept on file by the family) and said the bill was now. . . suspended. An accurate bill, based on the re-submitted original readings, would be sent out within 28 days.

    But no revised bill was forthcoming within 28 days. Nor in 2 months. Only 3 months later did a letter arrive by post from the Head of Customer Services saying that if the bill was not paid within 14 days, Court action would be instituted which could have serious consequences for the credit record of the individual concerned.

    The bill wasn't actually attached. It came by separate mail a few days later. It had never been corrected. It had never been suspended. It was headed FINAL DEMAND in bright red letters and its terseness was calculated to intimidate as much as inform.

    As it was obvious that the oh-so-easy-to-make-a-telephone-call you mention was actually worthless, the matter was now pursued by email.

    Though reference was repeatedly made in that correspondence to the content of the CS phone conversation, not a single SP response made mention of that. Though reference was made to the unambiguous telephone assurance that the bill was wrong, the estimated readings were wrong, and the bill had been suspended pending the preparation of a new, accurate bill, not a single email response from SP acknowledged that reality.

    Illiterate, unhelpful and incoherent as SP's emails so often were, at least the threatening letters from the debt collection agency to which SP handed over the matter were crystal clear. Pay up or face the consequences.

    Not every family has within its ranks a practicing solicitor so I appreciate, our family was lucky in that regard and a letter from him to the debt collection agency was sufficient to make it clear that it, not our family, would face some serious consequences if it continued to send letters and make phone calls about an unproven debt at the heart of an issue which the energy company itself knew to be still in dispute.

    Thereafter, all the written correspondence, including that from SP's debt collection agency, was bundled up and passed to the Energy Ombudsman service. Subsequent to that, SP made a grudging apology, withdrew the bill, refunded the balance of the account which the company itself actually owed, and paid compensation.

    And its apology? "The situation unfortunately arose due to difficulties experienced with a new IT system".

    Apparently, that same non-excuse was trotted out time and again by Scottish Power to customers treated with similar contempt, this despite the obvious fact that it wasn't an IT failing that resulted in the company's behaviour but a sustained abandonment of ethical business practice.

    For that reason, then, you can see how much I agree with your point about "speak as you find". But I would still advise that, on the subject of speaking, no-one should ever speak to SP.

    Had it not been for that fully documented correspondence trail, our family members would've been left with nothing more substantial than flimsy notes of telephone conversations which SP could have chosen to claim had never existed -- after all, that's exactly the corporate stance it adopted in its pursuit of money to which it was never entitled: the studied avoidance of inconvenient truth. . .
    Hi Hibernia,tragic saga you have experienced with Sp.
    The only reason I have had no problems with them is because I have just stayed put, payed on time, gave monthly readings etc.
    And payed through the nose for my energy
    The perfect customer, for them.:)
    I am not naive in thinking that, if/when I switch, I will no doubt have problems, that’s why I have stayed with them so long, do not want the hassle.
    I have had hassle with every company when switching prior to Sp, so know what can happen, but nothing compared to your saga!

    Sp are not alone in making lives a misery, as this site proves, it’s woe all round.
    There are some happy ones too, they rarely post though.
    I have stated, I am an unlucky so and so, the eternal pessimist, if it can go wrong ,it will, if it doesn’t ,it’s a bonus.
    Probably why I have been with TalkTalk for 12 + years:rotfl:
    Never had a problem there either.

    One can get out of most things by paying !
    This market is broken, and needs a good shake up.
    Ofgem has a lot to answer for.
    One shouldn’t have to switch every year, or more regularly as some do.
    However, so is the insurance market, et.al
    I switch these, banks, etc, every year if required.
    No qualms.
    No problems.
    Why should energy be such a hassle, compared to these.
    :beer:
  • 2010
    2010 Posts: 5,329
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    Forumite
    I have been with SP for two years and I`m on my 2nd fixed tariff with them that ends in April 2019.

    I put my readings in every month and I get an instant bill, giving all the charges and the credit/debit amount and also if the DD needs altering.

    The online downloadable bill is usually available the next working day.

    All bills have been correct as well as the DD taken.

    Come April 2019, I`ll go to a comparison site and switch to whoever`s the cheapest and if it`s SP I`ll stick with them.

    So no complaints about SP from me.

    As mentioned above, people who are OK with SP rarely post saying so.
  • joe134
    joe134 Posts: 3,336 Forumite
    edited 1 December 2018 at 2:40PM
    Anthorn wrote: »
    EDF Easy Online Dec 19 disappeared because it ended but reappeared as Easy Online v2. As far as I know the v2 is similar to the original.

    As far as I know the Easy Online tariff is not broker exclusive although it is marked as "exclusive" on several comparison sites and is available direct from EDF. In which case the cash back from topcashback applies: £100. At the time of writing that offer expires in two days. Do your calculations and comparison before you switch.
    https://www.topcashback.co.uk/edf-energy/
    Thanks Anthorn, much appreciated.
    Although I have a TCB a/c, it’s something I have never used before.
    Wouldn’t know where to start, so a bit of homework for me.
    To get tcb, One has to click tcb and go to edf direct, and switch via them.?
    :beer:
  • Anthorn
    Anthorn Posts: 4,362
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    joe134 wrote: »
    Thanks Anthorn, much appreciated.
    Although I have a TCB a/c, it’s something I have never used before.
    Wouldn’t know where to start, so a bit of homework for me.
    To get tcb, One has to click tcb and go to edf direct, and switch via them.?
    :beer:

    On Topcashback sign up, search for a company or product and then click the link on the Topcashback page ..Then do everything online. There is a section on the Topcashback page telling you why you might not get the cash back. Also more often than not in general after clicking the link if you refresh or hit the back button your cash back won't be registered. If you have to do that then best to go back to the Topcashback page and start again.
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