Scottish Power - confusing billing, bills sent to non-account holder, bills received even after supplier change

[angeljs]

I'll try to cut a long, shambolic story short!

 

My husband changed providers some time ago.

He did a comparison search and Scottish Power seemed to be the cheapest.

 

However, when we first signed up, it was only for electricity.

We agreed a monthly payment scheme of £70 per month.

The next month, the payment amount doubled, and the next month doubled again!

 

Countless, pointless phone calls, speaking to people who obviously had no idea what was going on prompted us to change tarrifs, which we though we had done.

Please note that we were undergoing personal and family issues at the time, which is why we didn't change providers as yet, we just didn't need the hassle and we thought we'd seen the end of this rubbish.

 

For about 20 years, since we moved into our current property, we have had solid fuel.

Our landlord asked us if we would consider a gas conversion, which we did.

We asked Scottish Power to install a gas meter, but not to activate the supply until the gas conversion had been done, which they agreed to.

After countless phone calls, missed appointments etc., the gas meter was finally  installed at the beginning of December.

 

In mid- February, our gas conversion was completed.

Now we had to contact SP to activate the supply and put us on a duel-fuel account.

However (and bear in mind, each phone call took forever as no-one we ever spoke to seemed to take notes, so we had to explain everything over and over again),

 

they told us the gas supply had been activated in December and we would need to pay for our gas from that date.

We tried to argue with them, but to no avail, even though no gas had actually been used until mid-February.

Now the real fun started!

 

Scottish Power called us 2-3 times a day, on both our house phone and mobiles, they sent us text messages daily, and physical letters, all about the amount outstanding on our electricity bill from when they kept on putting the amount up.

 

My husband explained over and over again that we were disputing the amount, he asked countless times why the amount agreed had gone up, but never received a straight answer, but assured us it would be 'looked in to'. We asked them to stop calling, but they wouldn't. Each person we spoke to said we'd get no more phone calls until this had been sorted, but of course they never stopped! It got to the point where we stopped answering our phones because we knew who it would be! We threatened to complain about harassment, but were told they could legally contact us up to 6 times a day if they wanted to.

 

We were eventually moved to a duel-fuel account, but that took ages and more stressful phone calls, and all the time we are receiving demanding bills from them.

 

At this point, we were completely stressed and fed up.

We did another online comparison and found another provider.

 

However, because SP said we owed them money, they stopped the transfer until our account was clear.

Still under stress for other reasons, we just paid the bill and were let go.

We thought this would be the end of it.

 

But no.

 

We are still receiving bills from them, for different amounts, and they are threatening legal action if we don't pay them.

My husband phoned and they confirmed that our account was clear, but we are still receiving bills!

 

He asked them to send out a run-down of everything we've used, everything we've been billed, and everything we've paid.

Now they've drowned us with paperwork, it will take weeks to go through everything that came through the post!

The phone calls have stopped since we changed providers, thank goodness!

 

The other day I received a bill in my name, even though I've never had an account with them, it was always in my husband's name!

We can't get in touch with them as they are not answering contacts about non-emergencies until the COVID-19 crisis is over.

 

We just feel that this farce has been never-ending, and we are very confused about it all.

I'm disabled and we take care of 2 disabled sons.

 

My husband has enough to do without all of this extra stress, but it's getting to the point where we are afraid for our health, and also that our credit rating will be affected if they take us to court.

[dx100uk]

what are the demands for gas, electric..both? and for what period?

 

[BankFodder]

It sounds like a dreadful business and obviously we are going to have to try and untangle all to get to the bottom of the story.

The great news is that you've been here since 2007 and so you are thoroughly familiar with the advice given in our customer services guide to record all your calls and so you have got audio recordings of all the telephone calls that you have made and that will be very helpful evidence. Well done.

Secondly, you say that you have now been swamped with a huge amount of paperwork. Read our guide on how to deal with a subject access request disclosure or dealing with your court bundle and that will show you the best way to get everything sorted out so that you understand the file completely.

However, although you have been supplied with a lot of documentation – you can't be sure that you have everything. Send them an SAR immediately. Don't hang around. Make sure that they get this on Monday by email and hopefully that will pick up everything else that is missing. Make sure that you ask for call recordings so that you can compare them with the ones that you have got on your phone because you have read our customer services guide in the 12 or 13 years that you've been with this forum.

Once you have got this information together then we will ask you to restate the problem – but this time in a more structured way so that it is easier to understand. I'm sure the exercise of having gone through all of the documents will put it much more clearly in your own mind as well and you will eventually be able to provide us with a bullet pointed chronology – not too much narrative and then we can start to understand the situation completely and advise you as to the best course of action.

How does that sound for starters?

[ericsbrother]

they bought a new computer system in 2013 and nothing has ever worked properly since.

Read the consumer champions pages in the Mailon Sunday for the last 2 weeks and you will see a couple of sorry takes that may help you argue your points.

now what about meter readings? do you still have the old readings? If not you do a SAR and ask for them, I bet they are all estimated bills