anyone else in Scottish power hell? Any survival tips

[Trainfromredhill]

We moved house at the beginning of the month. Husband set up account as changing provider was not possible in our area. He was unable to set up a direct debit (he's pretty IT savvy) - he spent 2 hours on the phone with them.
yesterday the power got cut. I tried to call and elected for a call back between 1.5-2.5 hours later. In the meantime DH put £200 on the account. Whilst waiting for the call back the power came back on. Meter showed £10. Call back came, but its not really a call back its just a call to put you in a shorter queue....I waited for 50 minutes in the queue and then got cut off at 5pm because they close.
Started again today as soon as they opened. Spoke to a human after about 20 minutes. He said that the account has been closed - we have put money into a closed account. He also said we had been switched to a PAYG meter and we must have let someone into our home to do this - er no. It will take 14 days for the money to move. We have no means to pay into the new account. He sets up a new account.He says he'll transfer me to another person to enable me to pay into the account and get me moved onto a standard tariff. In the meantime £25 goes onto the meter. Again scottish power can't explain how this is happening (its pretty obvious to me that someone is incorrectly paying into our account). I waited for another 50 minutes to speak to someone (call back not an option), he 'd he'd look into it...and then cut me off. If you go onto their web chat they just tell you you need to speak to someone.....BUT I CAN'T!
Between DH and I have spent 6 hours on the phone to scottish power and are no further forward.

Can anyone offer any tips on getting around this dreadful customer service?

We had problems with them a few years ago, I ended up emailing the CEO who assigned it to someone who dealt with it. So many companies are like this now, just going through it again with a mobile company.

We were with them 8 years ago. Two bloody years they didn't take the direct debit out the bank although it was all set up properly. I phoned them every day, still nothing. Eventually they wiped the account and gave us compo. Was a total nightmare, never again will I go with one of the big companies.

You'll need to publicly name and shame them repeatedly to get action.

my only advise is CHANGE COMPANIES ASAP. It will not get fixed.

I began renting this house with pre payment meters. The gas was shut off so any bills should have been from when it was reinstated. No. They kept swiping money out for owed supply bills despite me being a new tenant which they acknowledged. They acknowledged this in every one of the 50 or 60 calls over 2 weeks I made trying to get it sorted where they tell me to go get a card from a shop, give a code, put a quid on, go back, put a tenner on etc. each time they swiped my money for debt. Each phone call they said it would be refunded in the next card/code/quid trip. I just stopped having gas at all because it was summer, we hadn't moved in yet and I used a kettle and basin for hand washing whilst getting the house ready to move into.
The exact same happened with the electricity meter. For 23 fucking hellish days (until I completed changing supplier) I would have electricity for maybe half a day as every tenner would have debt taken and just £3 left for my own use. Each time I was promised it would be refunded as I had to go get another card, give a code, spend a quid, put it in the meter, go get another tenner blah blah blah. I ended up in tears telling them I refused to go back and embarrass myself further at the local shop and had paid probably £80 or so on someone else's debt. I never did get that back. I then started to receive demand letters for just over £160 electricity. Each phone call admitted the debt wasn't mine and acknowledged that I couldn't have run up £160 on a pre payment meter in 23 days anyway. They promised it would be removed and I'd never hear from them again.

For 8 months I got threatening letter after threatening letter. Bailiffs threats and everything. Each time I would call them, they'd apologise and say they'd amend the account. They didn't. One day I got a nice chap who was horrified at my treatment, sympathised and said that it wasn't possible to do what they'd told me they would do (so knew I'd been lied to) but he could change the amount owed to under what they would chase. He changed it to 21p and one final 21p demand letter the last I heard from them.

My advice is drop Scottish Shower of shite as soon as you are able. And tweet the shit out of them til you get your money back.

Twitter tends to get results

Is it a smart meter set to prepayment mode? Or a traditional dumb prepayment meter.

And do you want to switch to a credit Meter and will pass a credit check?

If its a smart meter you need to get them to complete a change of mode on this meter to credit ideally. I suspect you are dealing with the mythical change of tenancy team. Either way try asking to deal with a senior POD support agent who will have half a chance of sorting this out.

If you end up off Supply again the prepayment off supply teams work until 19.00 mon-fri and until 4 on a Saturday. They won't be able to fix any issues with nMes on the account but will get you back on supply. If you have any vulnerabilities meaning you are eligible for the priority services register make sure these are updated to. Depending on the nature of any vulnerabilities this may also mean you calls are routed to a specialist care team.

Thanks for the tips.
@MugginsOverEre we can’t switch supplier because there is no supplier to switch to in our area.
@GreebosNanny it’s a prepayment meter- I don’t know what type. We have asked them to put us on a standard dd meter. We got another letter yesterday saying they’d cancelled the account again.

My gas meter isn't working I keep phoning up to tell them it isn't working, they book me in for a visit & 5 seconds after I put the phone down they cancel the visit! It's ridiculous!

The best thing to do is to either call towards the end of their hours (they used to keep the call centres open til 10pm) and be persistent once you get someone that you're not hanging up til they've sorted it, or email the ceo or one of the directors and tweet them!

I worked in Scottish power for a couple of years - it's full of agency staff so no one really is sure what to do, as all the permanent staff who do know, are off with stress!

“My advice is drop Scottish Shower of shite as soon as you are able. And tweet the shit out of them til you get your money back.”

could not agree with this more. Run run away.

@Janesdufflecoat when you say not working is this a smart meter where the battery has gone so no manual or automatic readings can be taken?

Metering appointments are a problem for all suppliers at the moment with a fight for skilled resources and appointments being prioritised based on safety/risk/ engineer availability factors. This could be driving the cancellations if you're not at risk of going off supply on a credit meter, as could a very rural or highlands/islands postcode.

My advice here would be to make sure a complaint is raised to enable your metering job to be escalated.

Are you in a new build estate? Possibly the first occupier in your home?

It sounds to me like this is an issue caused by SP having the incorrect MPAN for your address, so they are confusing the supply to your home with someone else's.

Have you looked at the serials on the physical meters themselves and checked that they correspond with those SP have listed at your address?

Smart meters can be switched to PAYG remotely, so it sounds to me like either one of your near neighbours has requested this, or due to non-payment of bills SP have enforced it, and because of an MPAN mix-up they've done it to your meters instead.

It's also possible if there's a problem recognising the correct supply at your address that they've stuck you on PAYG in the interim until the billing/account issue is resolved. This is not unheard of, but as a priority I'd be checking that your meters do actually correspond with the MPAN/serial SP have on record.

Grebbo- the actual gas metre outside isn't working & has lost connection with the smart metre! Thank you that's what will do!

I had an SP nightmare that went on for about 3 or 4 years, where I was disputing the final bill they'd sent after I went to another provider. They couldn't produce a breakdown that clearly showed how much energy I'd used, how much it cost, and how much I'd paid. They wanted over £500. Eventually they finally took £250 off and I paid the remainder. Part of what helped was a note I'd made in a diary 8 years previous recording a phonecall I'd had with SP when they'd changed the meter that 'proved' they'd lost payments I'd made.

The only advice I can give is write down EVERYTHING. Everything. Absolutely everything. Their systems are so shit they will lose things and get stuff wrong all the time. Also never believe a word any of their representatives tell you about what they have done or will do. Write it down. Because in almost every instance, for whatever reason, it never happens. By the end of it I had a stack of paperwork inches high.

Solidarity. They are a fucking nightmare to deal with and I am totally bewildered as to how they remain in business. It is beyond baffling.

They are singularly the worst company I have ever had to deal with, ever. Far too long a story to go into here, but I had to involve the ombudsman who awarded us £100 and luckily we could transfer back to our old supplier.
Is there really no way you can change to literally anyone else?

Dahlia My friend had an issue like that when she moved house! Gave them the final reading & paid the final bill. Then almost on an annual basis they would contact her asking for payment & all the paperwork would come out again.
In the end they were threatening her with court etc & she was 'bring it on' .

Oh god we had similar. We moved into a house with a standard gas meter and a prepayment electric meter.

I’ve asked for the prepayment meter to be swapped so many times and I just get ignored.

They did however setup a smart meter for it and it’s made things quite simple, we just top up via the app once a month and at least we can see the daily standing charge and how much we have left.

The debt was taken off the meter when we moved in and the reapplied twice. I absolutely lost my shit on the phone and told them they were effectively stealing my money and threatened a legal route. They probably thought it was hilarious but it did work & have had no issues since

Write everything down; every conversation, dates etc.

I had years of hell, lies, incompetence and eventually it went to ombudsman, thankfully I had everything documented; it was a bloody nightmare and stressful

@Janesdufflecoat I have the same problem as you, gas meter shows no readings and cannot be woken up. I raised a complaint and was told I'd be booked in for a meter change but they've put me off twice and now are not responding to my emails. I'm being billed based on estimated readings. Problem is I'm assuming my house soon so god knows what they will do.

We moved house 3 and a half years ago and they were a complete nightmare

I use to be with SP and was a nightmare. Change providers asap

We like pp got bills from them, which bore no relation to reality - bills for massive amounts, far beyond our typical usage, which we had told them at the start.

We made a formal complaint, and switched to another provider asap! In the end, they admitted they owed us a refund!