Yahoo Finance 'Scottish Power charged me £6,000 too much'
Despite my having arranged to have a dual fuel account with Scottish Power for electricity and gas in the place I was renting, the company gave me two separate account numbers. My efforts to sort this out failed and as it didn’t seem to be affecting my bills, I did nothing more.
However, four months after moving and changing supplier I received an £18 bill from Scottish Power. I called to say I did not live there any more, which I had previously told the company. Then I received a bill claiming I owed £151 for time after I had moved.
A few months later I received another bill, this one for £396.
CM, Cheshire
This was followed by eight separate bills for decreasing sums down to a final one showing a zero balance.
Four months later another bill came, this time for £396. Scottish Power began chasing robustly for what it claimed you owed. Although you kept explaining your side, there were no answers and no let up in the bills.
You tried the complaints procedure but the account number quoted on the response you had did not tally with the one that had been connected with the alleged outstanding debt.
Then Scottish Power’s Escalated Recoveries Team sent two letters in one envelope. One claimed you owed £396. The other stated there was an outstanding balance of nil.
Following that, two more bills came together but these, alarmingly, were for £1,776 and £4,708 respectively. Both were supposedly for when you had lived in the flat.
I approached Scottish Power and it transpired that your gas use, which should have been part of a dual fuel arrangement, had been registered separately and incorrectly. Unknown to you, money taken by direct debit had only been for electricity.
The outstanding balance for the gas Scottish Power now says should have been £493. It has written this off due to the delay in resolving this issue and is also sending £50 for goodwill.
It says most of the bills, including the four figure ones, were sent in error and based on estimated readings.
Neither you nor I can really make sense of the final figures but you feel that as long as the issue really has gone away, that is all that matters. Judging by some other readers’ problems with this provider I fear this is not a certainty.
Jessica Gorst-Williams tackles consumer problems for Telegraph readers every week. To contact her, click here. If you want to ask a general money question, email moneyexpert@telegraph.co.uk. The best of the answers are included in our weekly newsletter
