Scottish Power

[Thesearepearls]

My saga with Scottish Power started 18 months ago. I am not a customer of Scottish Power and I have never been a customer of Scottish Power. Also i have never been to Hinkley.

Around 18 months ago, Scottish Power wrote to me at my home (which is not in Hinkley) with a statement about a flat in Hinkley. I got a bit nervy about this and after a surreal conversation with Scottish Power explained that I knew nothing about this and how had they got my name? Scottish Power solemnly swore never to contact me again about this flat that had nothing to do with me

A month later they sent me something called a prepayment key. Same conversation, same solemn vow

A month after that they sent me a statement. Same conversation, same solemn vow

A month after that they sent me a cheque for £35. Same conversation same solemn vow.

Every month since they have sent me a statement. Every month since I have had the same conversation and every month a cheery call centre worker assures me they will never write again to me about this flat I have nothing to do with.

Finally I flipped and wrote them a cease and desist letter. This flat is nothing to do with me, I don't know how they got my name (that's a worry right there) and I insisted that they stop contacting me. This was two months ago.

Today I got another statement from Scottish Power.

I am raging. How HOW do I stop them? What about the poor unfortunate tenant/owner who is not getting their cheques or statements or prepayment keys? What do I have to do?

Scottish power have to be the worst
Company I have ever dealt with in my life.
I would just ignore all correspondence from them. You have told them enough times. Not your problem

Scottish Power are absolutely, unbelievably shit.

They are a shower of shite, ws are currently dealing with them and it's like talking to a brick wall.

Tweet them, a more senior customer service person might get it to resolve.

I don’t have any answers but I know it took 13 incorrect letters before they closed my account the only electric company I won’t touch.

I agree totally about SP. Mind boggling incompetent. Good luck with getting some resolution. I would put everything in writing to their chief executive.

My mum had this with NPower. Two years of incorrect bills (showing zero each time), each one queried and each time promised to put right, followed by a demand for over £10k in unpaid energy charges. £10k! They'd mixed my mum's house up with someone else in the same village, who was actually on a prepaid meter, and had no clue about how to untangle the mess.

My mum offered to pay the same amount that she'd paid her old provider for the previous two years so they took that as their way out. God only knows what happened to the rest of the £10k.

To make things worse, she couldn't leave them until she'd paid off her "arrears", during which time her online billing mysteriously disappeared to be replaced with seemingly random amounts that they sent each month.

Worst company ever. Go to Ombudsman. They will sort it for you.
PS you need a complaint ref. number from SP first. Ask for one next time they call.
Good luck

Agree they are the worst company I've ever dealt with - raise a complaint on their website and then go to the ombudsman. Talking to the customer service people won't resolve anything. It is very frustrating and I'm sorry you have been targeted by their incompetence. Good luck!

Absolutely the worst company ever. I believe they changed their computer systems around 4 years ago and since then it has just been a nightmare dealing with them.

Don't bother engaging with them further, beyond writing another letter raising it as a formal complaint and with a deadline for the matter to be resolved.

Then - obudsman, here: www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/household-gas-and-electricity-guide/complain-about-your-gas-or-electricity-bill-or-supplier

You'll need to go through the complaint route first (but that's just another letter) before ofgem will touch it, but just see that as a blip before you can escalate it to them.

to be honest, i'd write both letters at the same time - they're clearly unable to resolve the matter, so it's time to leapfrog around them.

i would also, personally, pepper your next responses with social media complaints (twitter, facebook, and suchlike) as well as posting back any pre-paid envelopes with as much heavy stuff as you can fit in.

i'd cc your complaint letter into the management team named here: www.scottishpower.com/pages/management_team.aspx

but then i've previously had similar horror experiences of utility company incomptence and this is a huge trigger for me - i no longer believe that by being reasonable and sending through documentation, waiting in call centre queues, etc goes anywhere... there's no point being reasonable when faced with months of their inability to fix basic problems like this.

so:
1- Formal complaint (say it is as such)
2 - ombudsman
3 - social media
4 - cc into named management contacts
5- figure out a way to cost them money if you can

state you'll be doing all of the above as of X date as a pre-warning but carry it out anyway.

the only way these companies will fix problems is if you hit them where it huts (this is two fold: reputation & operational costs).

Use resolver - amazing how quickly companies respond to contact through this site. I had an issue with Vodafone that dragged on for a year and it was sorted with 48 hours when I went through this site.

www.resolver.co.uk/companies/scottish-power-complaints

Thanks for all useful suggestions

I'll try all of them. Including resolver although right now I am feeling more like using a revolver than resolver.

Try asking for all the information they hold on you under GDPR. They should have an email address for you to contact to request this, then you've got the right to get them to change anything incorrect information that they hold.

If they fail to do this, the information commissioner's office would offer advice

The ombudsman was pretty useless when we had dealings with Scottish Power.

Scottish power keep ringing me about three times a day asking me to switch to them. I don’t answer anymore and block the number, only for them to try again with a slightly different number.

Scottish Power are a bunch of useless twats. We were on economy 7 with day rates and night rates for our electricity and wanted to change to a normal day tariff.

SP tried to tell us we needed a new meter and sent somebody out to check it out. Turns out we couldn't have a new meter because of something to do with a backing board. We had no end of phone calls and different people coming out to visit and we never did get it resolved. We changed to a different supplier and asked them if we could change from economy 7. No problem they said we'll just charge the same rate for both and add the two readings together.

Why couldn't SP do that?

I work in the industry and would say first of all raise it with their complaints team if you haven't already, they have 8 weeks to resolve a complaint before you can go to the ombudsman (unless they've sent a deadlock letter then you can before). The ombudsman won't usually take the case unless you've been through their internal complaints process first.

I would do everything in writing. Email or letter and say you expect this to be resolved by whatever the date is 8 weeks after writing or you'll be forced to approach The Ombudsman Services - Energy. (This will cost them £450 so they should be keen to resolve it internally) I'd also outline what you want done to resolve it and state this is the only resolution you'll accept and if they are not in agreement to please issue a deadlock letter as soon as possible.

NPower sent me a series of increasingly threatenting letters when I refused to pay a fuel bill when we moved here a few years ago. I wouldn't pay the bill because they sent me several bills, all of which were wrong, over-inflated by several hundred pounds. They also bombarded our answering machine with 'pay up or we'll take you to court' messages several times a day.

We moved in and switched away from NPower straight away so were their customer for about 2 weeks. I had an account with another supplier and was correctly paying them. I had meter readings, because I'm good at this sort of stuff, that suggested that we owed NPower about £20, which I was perfectly happy to pay.

I had the same sort of surreal experience as the OP, where they sent a nasty letter, I rang them and said 'the bill is wrong, these are the meter readings, send me a correct bill and I will pay it the day I receive it' over and over again until I finally phoned and found the complaints department within their labyrinthine 'press 1 for this, 2 for that and 3 for the other' phone menu system and got through to a lovely man who agreed how shit the situation was and, given how fairly trivial the amount was that I owed them, wrote it off, there and then. Result.

I wonder if, in your case OP, there's someone sat in the dark somewhere in Hinckley, wondering if their key will ever arrive, so they can buy electricity for their flat? Although it does have a rather good nuclear power station, so perhaps they've just wired the flat straight into the output from there by now, having got sick of their meter key thing never arriving.

Good news to report from the resolver website - this is amazing (if it follows through). Here's my email from scottish power

Dear Mrs Thesearepearls

Thank you for your email regarding your Scottish Power account. As part of the Directors Support Team I have been asked to investigate your concerns and respond to you directly.

Firstly, please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience that this matter has caused you, and I hope that I can now resolve this. At Scottish Power we are continually striving to offer our customers a high level of service as we consider this to be an essential part of our business. I am disappointed to learn of the problems that you have experienced, and your comments have been noted and passed for feedback.

I apologise that account 16041266339 has incorrectly been opened in your own name from 1st May 2016.

I have today removed all key payments from this account, and closed it to 2nd May 2016.

I have applied a goodwill payment of 55 pence to the account, which covers the one days standing charge that this has incorrectly been billed for.

This leaves a credit balance of £60.00 on the account, which is due to two Guaranteed Standard Payments previously applied for failed metering appointments at this property.

I have opened a new account from 3rd May 2016 in the name of owner/occupier, and the £60.00 credit balance has been transferred to this account.

I will also ensure that all the previous key payments removed from account 16041266339 are now re-applied to the new account.

To ensure that no further correspondence is received by yourself in relation to closed account 16041266339 I have also added Scottish Power's forwarding address to this account.

I trust that you will find my actions satisfactory, however, if I can help you with anything else please do not hesitate to get back in touch.

Kind Regards

Scottish Power