Dear Scott,

I am hoping you can help me on this issue I have with Scottish Power.

Me and my girlfriend moved into a 2 bedroom cottage back in March and since then we have experienced nothing but problems trying to sort the heating out at the property. We have three storage heaters in the property; 2 downstairs and 1 on the landing upstairs. I was under the impression that these stored the energy at night when it is cheaper and release it slowly throughout the day.

I enquired about setting up a direct debit so we knew the set amount and they said looking at previous bills from the property it would be in the region of £70 per month. This seemed slightly expensive for a two bedroom cottage so I waited to see what the meter readings were after a month or two.

I rang Scottish Power to give them my readings and received a bill in the post a few days later for £1047.88! This was the amount they had billed us for less than three months. Clearly this can not be correct for a house of this size.

In May Scottish Power said they would be sending someone out or contacting us within 47 days to inspect the Meter and look into our account which is clearly not correct. A bar was supposedly applied to the account during this time.

On 2^nd July 2009 my partner woke up to receive yet another bill from Scottish power. This time for £650xx . What I can not understand is how this has been sent out when a “Bar” was put on the account until the issues have been resolved. Following a conversation it turned out this bill had been sent in error.

My girlfriend rang Scottish Power and they claimed a complaint had been logged and closed off on the 25^th June 2009 following a conversation someone in Customer Services (by the name of Davina) had with me. I never had this conversation with customer services and feel furious that a concern has been logged and closed off without even making contact with me to discuss why we keep receiving ridiculous bills.

I have discussed this matter in great detail with my landlord who lives next door and runs a dairy farm. Even his quarterly bills are more than half of this. We have had someone from the gas board out to inspect the property and the landlord is looking into piping Gas to the cottage.

Last week an inspector came out to check the meter and claims that it is working correctly. I still can not understand how the bill can be over a thousand pounds for less than three months?

This complaint has been ongoing since May 2009. I have made a payment of £280 which equates to £70 per month. This is what we understood the average consumption to be upon moving into the property. I would like some clarification as to why the bill is so extortionate. If the bill is correct it equates to £330 per month for a two bedroom cottage, this does not stack up. We simply cannot afford this.

My landlord has also given me a copy of the previous tenants bill. It shows that they were charged 5.336 KWh at night and 13.472 KWh during the day. On the bill sent to me I have just been charged 12.656 KWh day and night.

When we moved into the property on 01/03/2009 the meter readings were 19,624 night , and 93,164 day. At the end of may they were 23,900 night, and 94,830 day.

Since we got that bill I have turned the heaters off and we now have no heating in the house. As you can imagine it is very cold as the house is 250 years old. Luckily we have an open fire which we can use to heat the lounge.

I have some other comparibles since we turned off the heaters:

25/05/2009 the readings were 23,900 and 94,830 and on 16/07/2009 they were 24,827 and 95438

16/07/2009 they were 24,827 and on 21/07/2009 they were 24,851 and 95,481.

More than anything I am looking for advice. I have logged a complaint with Scottish Power but dont seem to be getting anywhere and they simply want us to pay the bill even though it seems ridiculous. My landlord is very supportive who lives next door. He has owned the house for over 30years and says the bills have never been anything like that. Could it be the storage heaters are broken or using too much electricity? They are Newlec heaters, model NLSH24M and look about 20-25years old.

If anyone can give me any advice/pointers here it would be really appreciated.

Carl

Hi,

Having previously worked in the utilities industry for several years, I believe I may be able to help you with this.

First things first, there's no longer any use in contacting the call centre, as they've already failed to deal with your issue.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Write a letter, recorded delivery, to the Chief Executive complaints team of Scottish Power. Outline your problem, and state that if it is not satisfactorily dealt with you will be contacting Consumer Focus (they used to be called Energywatch). You should be able to find the address of the Chief Executive's office on the SP web site. They have a dedicated complaints team in place for this and are obliged to give you a reply within 10 working days, otherwise they are in default and owe you a compensation payment. Your letter should contain the points below:

2. State that you will be taking reads from your electricity meter for 7 days. Take these reads at the same time each day to provide an accurate estimate of usage over time. I don't know if you gave a read when you first moved in but re-supply this information. Also give an up to date meter reading. State that you'll be supplying the 7 day read figures when you have collated them.

3. It will help your complaint if you make a list of the major appliances (washing machine etc) that you have in your home, as well as how much you use them. How long your lights are on for etc. Again this helps them determine whether your usage is above average, erroneous etc.

4. State that if they can find nothing wrong with the reads you have taken, that you wish for them to either have an SP engineer examine the meter to find out if it's running at an incorrect rate, or use a "check" meter, which will run alongside your normal meter. It's a bit like running a test in parallel, the check meter should be able to determine whether your normal meter is running too fast etc.

5. State that you are disputing the bill, and you therefore expect them to halt any proceedings etc as a result of debt on the account, and that you do not expect your DD to rise until this matter has been dealt with satisfactorily.

6. Lastly, all calls are monitored within the call centres. State that you wish to see the notes on your account relating to the alledged conversation with the call centre operative. Additionally, state that you wish to receive a recording of the phone call conversation which is alledged to have taken place. If they cannot provide this, state that you believe the notes were made under false pretences and you refuse to recognise them.

Hope you get it sorted ok.

Carl Finlayson:

I appreciate it is alarming to get these unexpectedly high bills and frustrating to receive uncaring customer service.

Please keep calm and focus. I haven't studied the readings but if all your consumption day and night is being charged at 12.656 then the problem is that your account has been set up as a single rate tariff and not an Economy 7 tariff.

Post the name of the tariff as stated on your bill.

mrstella0:

Pretty much agree with what you say. Would always encourage customers to obtain the utility's complaints procedure and to follow it scrupulously. The rights to external reference if the issue is not resolved will be explained in the procedure.

Getting hold of the call records is a great idea. The formal mechanism is called Subject Access Request and costs the applicant £10 (but the organisation much more to fulfil)

Yeah that's the one.

I actually used to work in the complaints team. I found it disgusting the situations people would end up in simply because operatives within the call centres either had a lack of training or were simply negligent.

Most of the time when you state you want to make a complaint, you are actually being dealt with by the call centre operative, NOT the actual complaints team. My advice would ALWAYS be to write a recorded delivery letter stating exactly what the problem is, and address it to the appropriate complaints team. That way you can be assured that your problem is being dealt with by someone with the proper training to recognise the issues.

Also, it means you have an exact record of what you said and no one can dispute you on that. ;o)

Hi guys,

Many thanks for your advice on my electric bill.

I actually received another bill yesterday! This time for £498.00. Looking at the breakdown they have now split my bill to day and night rates accordingly. They have amended the pervious bill to £628.95 as apose to £1047 and I paid £284.20. They have then billed me from 26/05/2009 to 15/07/2009. Start rate 23,900 and 94,830 and end rates of 24824 and 95437.

This new bill totals £142.47 added onto the outstanding from the last one.

I am slightly worried as this bill now seems a lot less and will be mainly due to the fact I have turned off my storage heaters completely. Could this mean I will have to pay the excessive bill as it is down to the storage heaters using so much power??? If the bill for £628.95 is correct that would mean they are using over £200 of electricity per month!!

Do you have any advice how I can heat the house as I am told that the stand alone heaters that we have will go through just as much power. We do not currently use these as we have been advised not to...

Carl Finlayson:

There is more than one issue going on here (1) billing and (2) your heating system.

Haven't had time yet to study the details you originally posted but your latest replacement bill recognises 2 rates at least from 26/5/2009. You should check your previous bill for the period 1/3/3009 until 25/5/2009 shows 2 rate charging.

Storage heaters are not a great system and old storage heaters are even less great. Gets worse still if you are out all day and the house is not really well insulated.

Its a bit late for the heating season where the big numbers are consumed but it's always worth getting a handle on your consumption. Read the meters daily for a week, then weekly for a month and then monthly.

If the latest bill is based on estimated readings supply actual readings and ask for the bill to be re-issued - again.