MarkO

A couple of weeks ago we had an electricity bill from Scottish Power for £280 - that's from the 1st April to the end of May.

Turned out that the bill had an end reading which was about 3,200 units over what our meter was reading. Bizarrely, it wasn't an estimated reading, meaning I couldn't alter the bill using the automated system, so I had to phone customer services and give them the correct reading (thus dropping our quarterly bill to a more reasonable £30). The interesting thing was that I don't remember ever having had a meter reader come to the house (and neither does Beth) so don't know how the last reading wasn't estimated.

Guy from work has just come in this morning and said that he's had exactly the same thing - no meter reading, but a non-estimated bill come through with approximately 3,300 units above what their meter currently reads.

Sounds like Scottish Power have 'issues' with the company to whom they contract out their meter readings... anyone else had anything similar happen?

4X4BOB

Not same supplier as you, but I got it all the time with my home and work acccounts,I had to phone them after EVERY bill that I received.
I have now switched both accounts and have given them to different suppliers.

With original Co. when I moved work premises I was given a final bill for nearly £5,000 of electric my estimate was about £500.
I complained etc etc then heard nothing for over 6 months, so thought they'd cancelled it out. I then had a letter from them saying THEY owed ME nearly a grand! Needless to say I didn't argue and got them to send me a cheque ASAP

BOB

ProperCharlie

i got sent a bill for £2,000 by Atlantic. The meter reader had f*cked up, supplying a reading that was lower than the previous one. They assumed that the meter had gone *all the way round* and billed me accordingly .

They have the *worst* customer service ever. it took me 6 months to get back an over paid DD from them. They still owe me £40.00, which will take me another 10 hours sitting on the end of a phone to their call centre in wales, to get back.

Spoon

Never a problem here.

I read them and tap the figures into their website, job done.

MarkO

Spoon, that's all well and good, but I think you're misunderstanding. They never took a meter reading, and I never gave them one. If the bill had arrived with an estimated reading, I'd have done the same as you, and updated it myself automatically via phone/web. But this spurious reading came out of nowhere.. they claimed a meter-reading chappy had provided it, but neither me, nor the other guy in the office, have had any such person at our premises for several months.

Spoon

No Mark, I never misunderstood, it was loud and clear, although from my response I can see why you might have thought it.

I've just submitted your next reading.

TopBanana

Just think Mark, that would have been less than an hour's work before you moved

MarkO

Mungo

We had a new meter fitted by British Gas, and either the fitter hadn't supplied the "start" reading (it wasn't zero) or they'd just forgotten. Hence we got charged way more than we were supposed to be, and it took me months of wrangling with them to sort it out.

NotoriousREV

We had this with Scottish Power, we just phoned them with the real reading and they changed the bill without any fuss. IMHO, they accept that many "readings" will be a load of rubbish and don't argue with you.

gsm1

I've been using Atlantic for some time as well. They are good value but checking my bank statements one day (for something else), I noticed an odd payment had been taken out by DD. The proper bill had been DD'd but this other amount didn't relate to any bill. I called them up and they claimed there had been an error and the money would be returned to me. The guy on the phone knew about the fault and the exact amount that had been taken without me saying a word. A couple of days later I got a letter confirming the mistake. It made me wonder whether I would have ever got the money back had I not noticed the error?

Abdabz

Find this really interesting - I was on a Paypoint card system when I moved into my current house and found myself handing over about £30 a month during the winter to the nice man in the local shop.
Decided DD was the easier option so agreed to pay £30 a month on DD and then got a bill for the first 12 months showing that I owed them a further £280...

I have sent email after email and had phone call after phone call - but for some daft reason I havent tried to marry up the reading on the bill to the one on the meter... Will do this now...

I hate scottish powers attitude - just so blase' - I fart in their general direction

P

ProperCharlie

just phoned atlantic about the £40.00 they owe me.

"just reading through the notes sir, it says...
... customer to be refunded straight away..."
"oh. and when was that written?"
"err... march."
"not exactly straight away, is it?"
"err.. no sir. i'll do it immediately."

what annoys me is that i have to waste time chasing them up because they can't be bothered to folow their own syste,. oh well, i dare say a cheque will be in the post within the next 6 months or so.

MarkO

Exactly. I wonder how many people have been quoted a £300 bill with a daft reading like ours and maybe aren't on-the-ball enough to question it, and end up paying. Even if they get the money back eventually, it's a fair old whack of cash for Scottish Power to be earning money on...

ProperCharlie

gsm1 - as you say, atlantic are actually pretty cheap. i was quite happy with them until the £2,000 bill. i have since switched to sainsbury's (aka scottish power ) and it is working out more expensive.