I'm moving house real soon now. When I phoned Scottish Power to advise them of dates and addresses and that I wished to continue with their service, I was told just to phone on the day with meter readings from both houses. But they aren't the present supplier in my new house and I was not asked who was.
Can it be as simple as this ? When I last swapped, a fair amount of time and paperwork went by before the account was fully transferred. It seems more logical to me that the present suppliers will continue to have that privilege until such time as I move in and inform them I no longer wish to use their services (there being no fallback supplier by default).
Anybody done this recently ?
PS. Anyone who said buying and selling houses is only the third most stressful thing you can do, obviously hasn't moved much.
Quite possibly not - if you're moving to a Scottish Power area, ask for the number of MPAS (meter point administration service) - they should be able to tell you who the current supplier of the new premises are.
If I think on, i'll report back with it tomorrow :-}
I can't comment on the modus operandum when a customer moves, as the accounts side (supplier) are effectively a seperate business to everyone else, and per the government and c/o the data protection act, never the twain shall meet...
Do you know what sort of metering arrangement there is in the new premises, as the meter operator (MOP) is also a seperate business, and the supplier gets to choose who the MOP is, which might mean you have a non-scottish power meter in the new premises - and if its a pre-payment meter, you may find you have no means of buying electric until its changed...
Normal meters, and I know who the suppliers are, as the vendors provided copies of recent bills. I'll probably give SP another ring next week and try their blasted web site again, maybe (it keeps turfing me back to the same screen no matter how high or low I set security levels, scripting, cookies, etc.) Being on an online account, I seem to have to go through numerous levels of customer service before being routed elsewhere.
We were with NPower. New house was PowerGen. We were told that we'd have to give PowerGen the current readings and a month's notice when we moved. I was tempted to stay with PowerGen until the current round of price rises had settled down but after seeing on the web that they have the lowest customer satisfaction rating of any utility company (46%) and spending half an hour in a call queueing system to give them the readings, I thought i might as well change at the same time.
Eight weeks later the actual handover to NPower seems to have happened OK although I still haven't had a bill from PowerGen.
But I disccovered that I'd overpaid £1200 at the old address. Apparently we had an unusually high usage back in winter 2001 and they increased the direct debit payments to cover it.
I stupidly looked at the bills and assumed they'd adjusted them downwards but as the guy at NPower said, "We only increase them. We never adjust them downwards."
Eight weeks, five phone calls, two conversations with a senior manager and a threat of legal action later, I'm still waiting for a refund because "it's a large amount and we have to investigate before we give it back"... which I think translates as "we'd still like to milk it for a bit more interest."
In fairness though, they did send me a letter today acknowledging my complaint... and the Royal Mail kindly forwarded it from the old address. F*ckwits.
As soon as I get my money back, they're history. Quite tempted by the ethical tarriff that someone on the group recommended a few weeks ago.
And there's this from MoneySavingExpert.com...
British Gas Price Increase. Get a cheaper provider and £15 cashback The pre-announced BG price rises came into effect on Monday. Whoever your provider is, if you haven't compared and switched since the last round of price rises, now's the time. To do it; m'top pick comparison services are Energyhelpline* which if it can switch you will pay £15 cashback and Uswitch/champagne*, which instead gives you a bottle of champagne.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.