Arguement with Scottish Power About Electricity

[wulfinuk]

Hi,

 

I'm in the middle of an argument with Scottish Power about my outstanding electricity bill (according to them)

 

Bit of background, 2 years ago we were in debt with them by roughly £250 and struggling to make the payments to them. We agreed to have a prepayment meter installed with them taking £3.25 per week off to repay the debt to them.

 

2 years later we receive 2 years worth of bills (having not received a statement for the last 2 years!!!!!) with 6 different outstanding balances on them. Going through the statements I realize 1 years worth of payments were missing off my account. I gave them a call and they said they would look into it and call be back within 10 working days.

 

I have received a phone call back from them today saying they had found that there were £420 of missing payments that had been found and allocated to my account, but I still owed them £297.

 

I queried this as, obviously, I am on a prepayment meter, I pay for my electric as I go and I had been paying it off for 2 years. At which point they state that the meter hadn't been set up 2 years ago to take the payments of £3.25 per week and so I hadn't actually paid any of my debt off. But somehow in 2 years they hadn't noticed the missing payments and hadn't even tried to contact me to ask why I wasn't making any payments to my account.

 

They then offered me a 25% discount, which I declined, as I believe I shouldn't have any balance outstanding on my account and that this is all Scottish Powers mistake. They then said they may be able to get me a 50% discount and would get a member of the complaints team to call me back.

 

The complaints dept called me back and straight off offered me a 50% discount, which, according to them, is a higher amount than was originally outstanding 2 years ago. When I questioned this she said my balance outstanding was £730!!!!! When I questioned this saying I had only been told 2 hours that my balance was £300 she told me I must of misheard. When I still declined the 50% discount she said that she would review the case, again, and call me back on Friday. When I then stated about the code of practice for accurate billing for the fact I haven't received a bill in 2 years she stated that this only applied to new builds, which I can find nowhere within the document. I also asked for the address to send a S.A.R to them, which she tried 3 times to not give it to me but did eventually give me the address.

 

I am now eagerly awaiting the phone call on Friday to see what else they are going to offer me.

 

My questions are:-

 

Does the code of practice for accurate billing only apply to new builds or is it for any customer no matter how old your house is?

 

How can my bill still be going up even though I am on a prepayment meter, meaning I pay for my electric as I go and if I have no credit on my meter I have no electric.

 

Thanks in advance

[rebel11]

Hi wulf

 

There is a Scottish Power Rep - Colin on this site who can look into the matter for you, he should pick this thread up.

[nottslad]

Hi Wulf

 

The billing code applies to all customers, whether the property is a new build or anything.

 

I'm not over familiar with prepayment, however, the billing code would apply in this instance for underbilled charges older than one year, and possibly to the debt balance previously owed too.

 

Something has clearly gone wrong with the key not sending info back to your account on scottish powers system, this has now been picked up and the 2 years bills have been sent to try and get out of this... will be interesting to see their response!

[wulfinuk]

They did say that the possible reason they weren't receiving payments from the key is because I have the wrong key, so they duly sent me another one, which is the same key as the one I had before!!!

[ScottishPower Company Rep]

Hi wulfinuk

 

Sorry to hear about your situation. I appreciate your concern and that as a Prepayment customer you should simply be putting credit on your meter to pay for the electricity you are using. It does sound like your account needs to be investigated in detail to confirm exactly what has gone wrong and where your payments have gone if they have not been credited onto your correct ScottishPower account.

 

I will be more than happy to arrange for a full investigation of your account. Just send me a PM with your account details and I'll confirm what has been happening and what we can do to resolve this for you.

 

Kind Regards

 

Colin @ ScottishPower

[wulfwitch]

Just an update to this on behalf of my wife.

Had a call from Scottish Power last thursday, while they were still alledging we owed them £730 (despite originally being in just over £200 debt and on a pre-payed meter for 2 years) they agreed to completly write off the debt and waive the security deposit required if we wanted to move back to credit meters.

Unfortunately they didn't explain how we'd got our debt up that much or why they were just writing off the debt, so an acceptable result for us but it did seem to be a bit like just brushing it all under the carpet.

[ScottishPower Company Rep]

Hi Wulfwitch,

 

I am glad you have had a result with this, however it appears you would still really like to know what happended. I am pre-payment trained and if you wish to provide your details I will be able to get you the answers that you are looking for.

 

Kind regards

 

Graeme @ ScottishPower