To close my account with Scottish Power?

[Dolcelatte]

I pay on monthly debit to spread the cost and have just received a bill showing I am nearly £3k in credit.....surely they have miscalculated and have been taking far too much on the monthly payments. I can't get through on the telephone to ask them.

Has anybody else had a similar experience with Scottish Power or other energy providers and would you recommend any other provider as being more economical and efficient?

I don't think it's unusual to be significantly in credit just before winter as you overpay during summer to fund winter but 3k sounds like a lot (although I don't know what usual usage is like for you).

Scottish Power are bloody useless though, we had them as our supplier until recently and the customer service is shockingly bad.

I too can only comment on their customer service - I was in the phone queue for 55 minutes when I called to close an account. Would not use them again!

have they had a meter reading lately? they tend to not show any debits for power on the account without them

Good luck with getting it back. They are absolutely bastards.

I was paying too much, I closed the account (moved house) and they sent me a final statement saying I owed them £30.

I called and emailed over 20 times in total. Finally turned to the ombudsman who sorted it out pretty quick and I was refunded nearly £500

3k though! Go for it, leave them they are terrible.

WRT to being on the phone to them, you can click a number to get them to call you back and give them their due, they always did.

They sometimes 'accidentally' cut me off though during said complicated call. Can't think why......

Lumpen - was it hard to get the ombudsmen to help? We have a similar problem - where SP owe us £300 - want to change companies but worry that will make it harder to get money back. I can't face phoning again - the wait kills me. They have had the money since January. Despite countless phone calls!

No, quite the opposite, they were absolutely fantastic. I should have gone to them months ago.

The thing is, by the time I turned to them I had sent many, many, many emails and they said 'we can see you have tried every avenue for a long time...' So were instantly willing to help.

I think you need to try X Y Z before you ask for their help. So email the company (as proof) daily if needs be, make sure its there as proof then turn to the ombudsmen.

To be honest, they literally did all the work after that.

And now Im waiting for a further £90 because the OB emailed to say they are demanding that from SP as compensation - SP had given my bill to the debt collectors and I wasnt happy about it!

Is anyone else having problems with Scottish Power?

Yes. We have. I posted about it this last week (now resolved thankfully). Turns out others have been having issues on MN and a quick google reveals they have been having major customer service issues in recent months due to new computer system.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2185253-to-think-Scottish-Power-are-a-bunch-of-muppets

We have switched to Good Energy as a result.

If you want to change your payments at any time (up or down), just do it. You can pay them what you want, you don't have to accept the figure they give you. not a bitter ex-SP employee oh no Applies to any utility company that you pay by direct debit.

Many thanks for all of your helpful replies - I think it's time to change!

YANBU

Interesting. I switched to SP after Npower left me close to slashing my wrists and SO FAR I've had no problems. They were really helpful sorting out the Npower nightmare and later refunded me over £450 without me even asking earlier this year. It just turned up in my bank account.

However I will await the next communications with interest. For now I'm sticking with them. DO NOT go to Npower - out of the frying pan into the fire based on my experience.

In fact having just read the linked post the problems I had with Npower were very similar. I wonder if SP got the same idiots to write their new systems too.

Come over to OVo. I think they are great. You have so much control over payments. Refunds at the click of a button and they pay interest on your credit.

Wow that's incredible. Whatever posssessed them? Its well known how many complaints Npower receive. The system they previously had worked well.

Time to change I think which is a pain because I only changed tariff with SP a few weeks ago.

Citizens Advice Bureau info about complaint re Scottish Power and npower

Molly, I don't really give a shit and think thats a load of arse.

If they cared about their customers AND their staff they wouldn't introduce a new system without properly testing it and ensuring they had enough staff to cover the phones for any problems. It says on their website call waiting times are 15mins; the reality is more like 45 if the lines are open (last week they wouldn't even take calls); they are shutting the lines to make their call waiting times look better. This is about three times more than the other companies INCLUDING npower. The last time we requested a call back the next available one was 10 days later!!! In the meantime we were sent nasty reminder letters which was extremely stressful (especially since we had a baby this month). Thank God we weren't on direct debit or it would have completely wiped out our account, bounced our mortgage and car repayments. If it was such a brilliant system why didn't it flag up the fact that the metre readings they had seemed to show we'd used 4 years worth of gas and electricity in 3 months!!! An amazing brand new computer system should have the capacity to show up strange readings that might indicate a problem like potentially faulty metres or readings.

But it will be better in the long run...

After Scottish Power have given their customers nervous breakdowns, wrecked their credit ratings and left them with no food for a fortnight.

Yeah good oh. We decided we didn't really fancy finding out especially since their minimum rate turns out to be higher than the competition who have good ratings with Which? customers for the last 3 years and don't tie you into a fixed term contract.

I think I must say, that post is the biggest joke I've heard on MN in the last 3 year or so!

Wow. Why would any company voluntarily use the Npower system?! They're beyond shit and I've had Ombudsman input / compensation awarded due to their lack of billing ability (and I'm still waiting for a proper final bill 10 months after leaving as they're unable to produce one that's right!).

The fact is, had we been direct debit, our mortgage would have bounced and we would have been left up shit creek for three weeks, including the two days I was in hospital having a baby, whilst SP got their act together. This was after speaking to two different people who told us that they had sorted it out and clearly hadn't.

I'm using that tone, because to be told it will be all good in the long run is quite laughable given the sheer amount of stress its caused.

If its your job to represent disgruntled customers, you should understand more than anyone why this might have been a little bit of an issue and why being told that it'll all be good in the end might considered to be a relatively poor consolation to someone who will very soon be an ex-customer due to their non-existent poor service.

Red Toothbrush - that's really helpful, thank you. I am definitely changing!!!!!