Who is your electricity supplier, and are you happy with them (boring I know, sorry!)

[Aimsmum]

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[expatinscotland]

I HATE Scottish Power. Ever try to switch? Good luck! They'll sock you w/a bill for hundreds of pounds and you'll be stuck arguing w/them for months and in the meantime unable to change companies.

[Aimsmum]

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[expatinscotland]

Same thing happened to us. Yeah, like we REALLY use £75/month in a pokey two-bed in summer - w/the heater OFF.

In fact, if you do a search of Scottish Power on The Scotsman website - www.thescotsman.co.uk - you'll see Scottish Power is being investigated by regulators after attracting a record 38,000 complaints from customers last year.

[Iklboo]

We use Powergen. £50 a month for both gas & electric. 2 bed end terrace with gas fire/central heating & electric cooker/hob etc. We've only been in the house 6 months so they've told us this is our 'start off' rate and it's likely to go down. Ha ha ha. Not with a baby on the way it won't!!

[wordsmith]

DON'T get me started on Scottish Power! We signed up to their online billing service and they asked us to send in details of how much we used each month so they could set the dd tariff. We did this but they chose to ignore it (they say they lost it) and have, for the last year, charged us £18/month for dual fuel (ie both gas and electricity). We've had a lot going on so haven't really noticed that this was about 1/3 of the price we used to pay with npower (yes I KNOW we should have been more vigilant but....)but they DID promise us cheaper bills.

Everytime we log on to give a reading we checked the bill and it seemed to be fine, buiding up a bit of a debit balance but nothing to get worked up about, UNTIL this Spring when we find ourselves suddenly owing £560 outstanding!!! No-one contacted us about this or said we owed it so we called them and they basically said, ooh, yes, you owe us that, can you send us a cheque, please?

After months of emails, calls to customer services, letters to the MD etc we eventually got £100 knowcked off the bill and an agreement thatw e could pay in 4 instalmnets. We have also upped our monthly payments to the correct amount. Needless to say as soon as we have paid of the debt it's goodbye Scottish Power.

My gripe with them was (and still is) that they tempt you in with these low prices and promises to be cheaper and then don't tell you that
a) they don't bother setting a realistic tariff.
b) they won't flag up either by email or via a noticeable mechanism on their website whether your payments are seriously out of kilter
c) there is no obvious way to correct your payments anyway - I assumed that THEY would inform US that we needed to pay more!

They're a total bunch of shysters. In our email correspondence they have admitted everything I pointed out to them was their fault but we still have to pay the balance. We gave up arguing in the end.

When we more to our new supplier I want a bill by post and I DON'T want to pay by direct debit. I want to be in control for once.

Grrr.

[Aimsmum]

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[GetMakosiorVanessaorOrlaithOut]

I have found Atlantic the cheapest and their customer service absolutely perfect every time.

[geekgrrl]

we use basicpower, they're the cheapest on all the comparison websites and never had any problems.

[wordsmith]

Aimsmum, you should be able to claim back that £200 as they are making interest out of it. It's YOUR money. This is the trouble with direct debit. There is usually a settlement quarter, ie when they reassess your payments in line with actual usage, and refund the balance, if there is one. But i don't think Scottish POwer operate like that. I would advise you to tell them that unless they reassess your tariff to around £50 per month and refund the outstanding amount into your bank account pronto, you will be reporting them to Ofgem . Also try contacting Energywatch and see what they say.

If they argue, you could always say "You don't understand!"....

[janeybops]

powergen - no problems and £43.50 month for gas and electricity. 4 bedroom semi.

[spursmum]

i found Npower to be really good. i have a 2 bed flat and pay £20 per month for each fuel. i also update them every 3 months with my meter reading so i know what i am paying. i also pay both by DD so i qualify for £50 discount at the end if every year. try the website uswitch as they can tell you which supplier is best and cheaper. Npower also contact me if they estimate my usasge to go up to inform me of any changes to my DD. hth

[wordsmith]

yep i had no probs with npower either, wasn't my idea to move, was my dh's, easily persuaded by a smooth talking salesman. he is now banned from making mahor financial decisions as he doesn't think them through.

[Aimsmum]

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