scottish power pre-pay electricity yet i get a final bill!

[craigers]

please someone, can you explain how the hell i have been sent a final bill from scottish power, when the electricity was on a pre-payment meter??

[rebel11]

Hi Craig

 

Thats one for Colin from Scottish Power, the onsite Rep.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/member.php?292313-ScottishPower-Company-Rep

[ScottishPower Company Rep]

Hi craigers

 

Send me a PM and I'll have a look and see whats happening with your account.

 

Kind Regards

 

Colin @ ScottishPower

Edited February 18, 2011 by ScottishPower Company Rep

[nottslad]

Hi Craigers

There can be a few reasons as to why you get a final bill even on prepay

1. the final meter reading provided by you rnew supplier could be wrong
   
2. A debt was set on your meter that hasn't been repaid
   
3. you ran your account in emergency, and as such any standing charges couldn't be collected causing a debt to build up
   
4. the meter reading taken when you moved out (if this is the case) was wrong
   

[ihateyes]

Ive heard this before. My friends aunt got a letter thru wantin £200+...

I got a letter in 3yrs agosaying i was £380 in credit. duly i called and asked for my cheque. adv to allow 28days. 2 months passed, called and gave off dmanding my chequ at which point i was told i cant be in credit, i argued at the same time then i cant owe money.

 

eventually they paid me £20...

 

 

Colin any answers????

[craigers]

Its only for about £20, but its the principle. The landlord had run up a debt on post pay, so had a pre-pay installed, and as far as i know a percentage of each top-up went to paying off her debt. When we moved in she had the account changed to my name. We were only in the property for three months and the landlord moved back in the day after we moved out. I never took a meter reading and she changed the account back to her name. The night we moved out the meter was in credit, but low, so i flicked the emergency button. At most i reckon it would've used £1.00 of emergency credit overnight, but thats a push.

[craigers]

colin, i'll pm you once i find the bill.

[mrbigjase]

Why were you paying your landlords debt?

[nottslad]

the debt should have been cleared when the account was changed over to your name.

 

Did you use the emergency credit function often? As when a meter is running in emergency, it can't collect standing charges which can then build up as a debt. The other issue appears to be with the final meter read bein estimated.

 

It would however strike me hat the supplier can't justify the debt and therefore it should be written off

[craigers]

I doubt very much our tokens were paying her debt, if it was thats downright criminal from SP. Its bloody ridiculous that a standing charge can't be deducted from the next credit after using emergency credit. I wouldn't say the emergency credit function was used all that much.

[ScottishPower Company Rep]

Hi craigers

 

I'm not a prepayment expert but know there are a few things that need to be done when moving into a property that has a prepay meter.

 

1. Make sure that you record the meter reading when you move into the property so that our billing system creates an account for you from this meter reading.

2. Make sure the prepayment meter settings are completely reset for when you start using electricity. A change of supplier key will be sent to you to reset the meter.

3. Don't use a previous tenants key or payment card when you move in as the payments you make doing this will not be credited onto your account and will instead go to the previous tenants account when your account is eventually set up.

4. Make sure you record meter readings when you move out of the property and when we send you your final statement, make sure the meter readings (start and end) match with what you recorded.

 

If you follow these steps then you should not have an outstanding balance. If you follow these steps and you still have an outstanding balance then give our prepayment team a call and they will investigate this further for you.

 

ihateeyes - If you are a prepayment customer then there should not be major credit or debt on your account and if there is then this needs to be investigated. Errors can occur on prepayment accounts but they need to be investigated on an individual basis to confirm what is happening. You should at least get an explanation to confirm why you have received such a letter if the credit balance has been reduced.

 

If you have anymore questions please do not hesitate to ask.

 

Kind Regards

 

Colin @ ScottishPower

[ihateyes]

Aye but the best thing is Colin, they want to charge you £70 odd quid to send an engr round to inspect the meter.

No explanation was given, and when i moved, i got rid of SPower and went to BGas.

 

At least now i dont have to pay a standing charge, and also have a credit meter now.

[mattlamb]

I'm afraid you would have been paying off the landlord's debt with Scottish Power if a new electricity key was not sent to you, and you used the landlord's key.

[ScottishPower Company Rep]

Hi ihateyes

 

When you say that we wanted to charge for sending an engineer round, do you mean that you asked for the meter to be tested (accuracy test)? If this was the case then yes this is a chargeable job, however the fee would be returned to you with interest if the meter was found to be faulty.

 

I would like to clarify the issue of no standing charges as there is still some confusion as to when this is financially beneficial to a customer. The no standing charge tariff will benefit a customer that uses very little to no gas or electricity. Let take gas for example. If you do not use any gas at all for a year and you are on a no standing charge tariff then there will be no charge applied to your account. If you do not use gas and you are on a daily standing charge tariff (lets say 11p per day for example), then your gas account will be charged £40.15 (365 days @ 11p) + VAT for the year for not using any gas.

 

If you use your gas and electricity then there is very little difference between a no standing charge tariff and a standing charge tariff. A no standing charge tariff will have a Primary and Secondary rate. The Primary rate will be higher and will be for a select amount of kWh used per quarter. This higher rate effectively covers the daily standing charge that you would be charged if you were on a daily standing charge tariff. This is just something to bear in mind for the future if you are being told that a no standing charge tariff is better for you when you are currently being charged on a standing charge tariff. If you were to work out the annual charge on both tariffs I am sure that you will find very little difference.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Kind Regards

 

Colin @ ScottishPower

[craigers]

I'm afraid you would have been paying off the landlord's debt with Scottish Power if a new electricity key was not sent to you, and you used the landlord's key.

 

matt, the key was reset for use with my account.

[ssman]

Hi there,

I need advice regarding a outstanding bill we have received, there is no explanation of what these outstanding charges are for apart from a sum of £48.70, we are on a key meter at the minute so we can control our usage better and avoid bills piling up, we have no previous debt on the meter and are not in a contract yet when we decided to switch to a new supplier amazingly this debt was sudden raised how is this possible, the excuse we where told was to do with price fluctuations or something but how is this our fault. we pay what they charge at the time via our top up key at a paypoint, we have people collecting meter readings and so on, we are still currently using the Scottish power meter key to top up our electricity, We forgot to send off our meter reading to our new supplier when we switched I believe we have left it to late now, our account with Scottish power is now closed.

They phoned us regarding the charges and I refused to pay them for these charges as there was no explanation for them, they also told me that my account was closed.

We where told recently after yet another call they would now re-evaluate the charges by contacting our new supplier and calculating it from current meter reading.

 

In my opinion charges like this are disgusting and dishonest this is the exact reason people use a (pay as you) go pre-payment meter to avoid sudden bills like this.

 

Sorry about the Rant I am just annoyed as i could do with out this at the minute.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks Steve.