Scottish Power - Nightmare! Now No Gas Bills!

[ericofold]

Hello - I moved into my own house approximately a year ago. The house was previously supplied by PREPAYMENT Electricity AND Gas meters. I contacted Scottish Power to get this changed to a "normal" meter, where I could pay bills as normal at the end of each month.

To cut a very long story short, after many phone calls, complaints to management, and an exceptions team handling my case, I managed to get Scottish Power to supply me in the "conventional" way with power and gas i.e. through normal meters and monthly billing. They just seemed to mess this up at every point - saying they had no record of my address, telling me all details were lost on their system, even once telling me that I had called and cancelled the supply of gas and electricity (when I had not). Anyway.

I had received two ELECTRICITY bills, one after the other. I called to pay these and when I was on the phone I asked when I could expect a GAS bill. I was told that I was still on a PREPAYMENT scheme. I explained that transco had been to my house to fit a dry-meter and that I was told (by the Scottish Power exceptions manager) that I should be set up for normal billing. They again confirmed that I was still on a Prepayment System and told me "the details must be wrong on the computer". They tried to put me through to that department but, as usual, it was busy and I was asked to call them later to discuss it.

This was shortly before Christmas so I was busy and also not in the financial position to be hit with 4 months of Gas bills. I left it. I have still heard nothing.

I fully intend to call them to sort this mess out (sanity permitting) but I just wondered what your thoughts were on not telling the power company at all. To summarise - they think I am paying for my gas by prepayment card, but I have a fully flowing supply. As far as they are concerned I will not be presented with a bill. They have full details of the nightmare process I went through (including their extreme incompetence) to organise what I thougth was a regualr supply of electricity.

Any comments?

Col.

[Sparks]

Do you have any paperwork stating you are now on a normal credit meter?

If so, I would personally just read the meter every month and put the money in a savings account earning interest for you, so when they do eventually sort it out, you can then pay them (but have a winged that you cant possibly be expected to pay for X months or years gas in one hit, and they will probably let you spread the cost over more time, earning you more interest!)

We had this with our electricity after we got a temporary disconnection while I was rewiring my consumer unit (and the electricity company was taken over at the same sort of time) they did eventually ask for some money two years later, but said we could spread the cost over a year (or it may have even been two!)

Sparks...

[ericofold]

That is a very good idea. When I lived in a rented flat a couple of years ago I contacted the power company to say I had moved in. The person on the phone let it slip that there was a substantial debt left by the previous resident. She said that this was nothing to worry about however as I had provided them with a meter reading etc.

I wonder what would happen if I never paid a Gas bill for a couple of years then moved house. FYI - my wife would never, never let me do this as she is too straight laced. I on the other hand would do anything to avoid speaking to these companies as they hae caused me nothing but problems.

Food for thought.

Col.

[John Cartmell]

Read the meter. Put the required payment in an interest-paying account. Wait for them to contact you.

[NC]

I have not paid powergen since Sept 2004. They keep generating bills online, but have not posted one to me. I never asked for an online-only account, so have not paid. They have never chased. Went through a process a year ago to try and get them to sort it out. Still nothing from them though. I owe =A3915. We have now moved house, and when I phoned to set up the new account they said that they had found the old account and were happy that was 'all settled' ! The full balance is sat in a savings account waiting for them to ask for it. I'll be happy to pay when they do, but until then I will no offer it...

[John Cartmell]

Treat them as con merchants and thieves who have government support. You cannot get them thrown into gaol - what they deserve - and you have to deal with them. Just do the minimum required to keep your dealings clean.

[The Wanderer]

Make a written note of all that happened whilst you can remember things reasonably well, also take regular readings - say at monthly intervals, that'll establish your usage - of the meters. As and when you need to speak to them, make sure you get a name. I had a prob with Powergen, and it took a letter to their Director of Customer Relations before I got someone who was prepared to own the problem and finally sort it for me.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Also, work out (or failing that, guess) what the monthly payments should be, and put the money in a deposit account to earn you interest until you need it.

I had a neighbour who had a similar issue. Being scrupulously honest, they tried to pay for their electricity, but no supplier was interested, saying they weren't a customer (and couldn't transfer without knowing who the supplier was). After around 5 years, things caught up and it transpired neither of the 2 former residents had paid any electricity bills either, since the deregulation. Apparently, lots of records were lots at that time, particularly if something like house changing hands was happening at the same time. Fortunately, they had kept all their own detailed readings since moving in, as the initial quoted bill was vastly more, based on the last real reading split in some other way.

[mcbrien410]

Change to SCOTTISH GAS. I just have. They say they'll make my monthly payment about =A335.00 instaed of the =A385.00 that Scottish Power take by DD.

We shall see in about a months time.

Chris.

[ericofold]

I am with Scottish Power now BUT I would NEVER, EVER, EVER deal with Scottish Gas again. Part of the intial fiasco of trying to get sorted with a "normal" gas/electricity supply started with Scottish Gas (my original supplier when I moved into my new house). If you can believe this - they were even WORSE than Scottish Power!

I called them around 20 times to try and get put on a regular supply. I was told that they had to perform a credit check on me each time I requested to be "set up" with an account. I intially agreed to this but they just screwed it up time after time.

I was initially told that my house did not exist (I asked them to call me back on my home number if they wanted proof that this was not the case - they even sent a letter to my house asking if I could contact them to confirm some details - these details were my address!!!!!!!), another call told me there was no record of me calling, another call said that I had called to cancel everything - months after I had entered into this nightmare. I did no such thing! Each time I explained all I wanted to do was purchase power like normal, i.e. without prepayment tokens.

Each time they carried out a credit search on me and, after waiting 2-3 weeks at a time, I called back to find out another screw-up had taken place and I was back where I started! I lost the rag when I was put through to a call centre in India and was told that there was, again, no record of me. I was told that I had to have another credit search carried out and they started asking where I had lived for the last 15 years and what I did for a living etc!!!! I asked if this was standard procedure and they said yes.

Get this - I told the operative that I wanted everything cancelled and that I did not want any other credit checks done one me as this was, in general, not a good thing (particularly given that I had moved into a new home recently). I actually asked to be put on hold while the operative entered this information onto my file. I said I was going to change supplier and never wanted to hear from them again. I got a call later that week saying that Scottish Gas needed to confirm some details to process my application. I told them I had cancelled all contact with them and that I specifically asked them not to carry out any more credit checks on me. I was told that they had just carried out another check. I could not believe it! I asked to speak to a supervisor but there was none available. They said I would be contacted to discuss this but no one ever did. I ended up just going along with the slow process of changing supplier to Scottish Power - something I was assured would be easy - back to the top of the thread I think folks.

Thankfully I have not heard from Scotiish Gas for some time.

BEWARE! Never deal with them if you can avoid it!

I need a drink :-s

[John]

I've just sacked Scottish Gas too as my electricity supplier (I don't have gas). Or I should say British Gas, as once I was on board that's who I found I was dealing with most of the time. I think the name Scottish Gas is just to try and kid Scots customers they're getting a local service.

They're a shower. Bills difficult to budget for as they often charged for varying periods - and the number of initial premium units seemed to have no relation to those periods. Requests for an explanation of their charges were ignored. Then, when one 'quarterly' bill came 6 weeks after the last, it took a MONTH of those hanging-on-for-ages phone calls to get any kind of explanation - just passed from hand to hand on their 'customer services' lines, in the obvious hope I'd just give up. Though their elusive customer services seemed suddenly to become magically alive when I moved my account.

I'm not much keener on Scottish Power either. When I used them (before Scottish Gas) I found they seemed more interested in foreign investment that serving their customers or maintaining their infrastructure. Not all that long since they left 1000s of their retail customers in limbo by closing down their electrical goods network overnight. At the time I moved from them (4-5 years ago) I saved quite a lot by shifting to Scottish Gas!

I'm with Scottish Hydro now - a fair bit cheaper right now. No problems so far.

Touch wood.

John

[tarquinlinbin]

Why oh why does anyone pay fuel bills by ongoing monthly DD anyway?. Put the money in your bank where it belongs and pay them when the bill comes!

Remove antispam and add 670 after bra to email

[Andy Hall]

That depends on the deal that you can get and how the payments are structured.

1) If the price that you pay with some kind of DD is the lowest you can get and the next nearest without DD exceeds that by more than the short term (< 3 month) interest rate (divided by approx four since it's only a three month deposit, then you might as well use a DD, provided that.... 2) You arrange that the DD underfunds the amount due and that you owe them money rather than the other way round. Then any shortfall can be treated as part of the negotiation of the payment for the next DD period. 3) Never agree to the DD amount that the supplier proposes.

[manatbandq]

Because you generally get a better deal and you can arrange the payments so that you still owe them a little at the end of the year. I wouldn't pay any other way.

MBQ

[Weatherlawyer]

When I was getting gyp from British Gas earlier this month, I asked about the lower rates it seemed I had been paying in years prior. The fitter said that as the "meter set-up" was down to the utilities, they are not allowed to take any more than the legal rate for the power actually being metered. They might ask but they can not insist.

Someone in their untrained crew of dodgy monkeys has fouled up badly and for once, someone innocent is on the winning side.

Every time Onstream changed my prepay meter, they robbed me of some of the money I had fed into it. The last time it was over a quid. I had to spend ages on the phone. OK so it was only 3 quid but that was 3 quid I won't see again, never mind the aggro of dealing with the fools who would not listen to what I was saying.

What else did it cost me? A month in a cold flat, with no night storage heating, while I paid over the top for energy consumed to heat the place. All the while waiting and phoning and troubled.

All unpaid. And no-one gets a slap for it. And it all happens again and again to someone else.

[John]

I don't. Never, not ever, not any more. Pay by DD that is. I don't believe in anyone taking money from my bank account except me. Despite the constant reassurances from banks I've had a couple of bad DD experiences that, while they were sorted, took far too much time and effort to do so.

DDs are fine for those who prefer to pay that way, it's a free country, but I think it's high time DD 'discounts' (i.e. surcharges for non-DD payments) were made illegal. It should certainly be illegal to establish a DD without the physical signature of an account holder.

John