Add your feedback on energy supplier Scottish Power

Seems like I will be moving away as the price hike is about to hit, just need to find out if my recent smart meters will work with Coop as they would save me around £250 annually. Not had any other issues really apart from wanting payment within days when I dont even have the bill in my hands!

This is my review of Scottish Power on Trust Pilot:

** Update - my balance is now £1675 in credit and Scottish Power didn't call at the agreed time so that I could discuss my complaint.
Do you really want to use this company to supply your electricity?!
I'm also now very concerned because Scottish Power has deleted details of my energy usage from May 17 - is this to manufacture a higher bill? Additionally, I can now no longer access any energy usage details for the entire time that I've been with Scottish Power - does this sound like something that a reliable and trustworthy company would do?

Having seen the amount of credit in my account increase every month, I called last week to ask for the £1400+ of my money that they have to be refunded as I was sick of Scottish Power getting interest on my money! I was told that I would be contacted on Monday to confirm the refund or be updated on the status of the request. (Request to be paid back my money - I'm changing accounts because they're so bad but even so, surely they plan to pay me the balance of my account, don't they?! It really isn't a request!).

Fast forward to Monday and there's no promised phone call and Scottish Power still have nearly £1,500 of my money. Perhaps they think that if they keep quiet then I'll forget that they owe me so much? I called today (Tuesday) and guess what? I was told to expect a phone call on Thursday to discuss my complaint. I'm not complaining - I just want to switch accounts and get my money back. Things have gone much further than a simple complaint so help me switch and give me my money back!

Hengus:

In haste. As you were so helpful to me on an entirely different MSE thread, I'm delighted to take this opportunity to thank you (again) for that assistance and to offer the following quick advice:

(1) Our own not inconsiderable experience of Scottish Power demonstrated it to be a dysfunctional business which under a less conciliatory regulatory regime would and should have been stripped of its UK operational licence long since;

(2) Telephone conversations with any Customer Service representative -- be it Scottish Power's or that of any other utility -- have No. Evidential. Value. Whatsoever;

(3) Please see (2). Though I have repeatedly stated this on threads such as this, other MSErs seem unable or unwilling to take the slightest notice. Hopefully, your own self-preservation instincts are stronger;

(4) Any and all communications with Scottish Power should be by email ONLY. CS conversations are meaningless and, in the event of a complaint, count for nothing at all in a final adjudication (or, as in our case, what to us seems to have been the consolidation of our situation within a referral from the Ombudsman Service to OFGEM itself);

(5) Email documentation is legally valid and legally credible. CS phone conversations are not -- even if you record them yourself;

(6) Any formal complaint to Scottish Power must be sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery, a record of the cost of which must be retained so that it can later be claimed back in the complaint settlement and compensation award. An online complaint isn't worth the screen time expended;

(7) Best of luck.

Out-of-date databases are the bane of the energy industry and are known to be so. Energy companies should long since have ensured that such inept record-keeping was put to rights, but they haven't bothered nor has the energy regulator, either. (But then, expecting anything of the incompetent OFGEM is expecting far too much.)

We are in the process of switching from our existing supplier to Bulb Energy. The switch has been delayed because Bulb could not find our accurate address, despite the fact that we have lived here for 12 years as the first purchaser of this new-build construction.

At attempted Bulb sign-up, we were invited to select our address from a postcode drop-down list which featured this gibberish:

Landlord Supply Plots 1-19.

That entry clearly dates from 13 years ago, at which time the location where we live was under construction and the developer -- as 'landlord' -- was installing utilities connections to each property.

Development here was concluded in 2006, at which time the developer/landlord ceased any and all connection with it.

Bulb has blamed the accuracy of the energy supplier database it is using and has promised to sort out the mess. Unlike Scottish Power, however, it has not sought personal data from us, nor should it have done: confirmation of our correct address exists on every single database used by every single commercial business in the UK. . .

Except the energy industry's own idiotic database, with -- in our case -- its 'plots' and its 'landlords'.

Scottish Power is a major energy supplier (sadly) in the UK and has enough clout to deal with the serious deficiencies in the database it is choosing to use. You are entirely justified in telling it to sort out a situation that though not of its own making is, nevertheless, the energy industry's problem overall. Not yours.