Never, ever, not even if hell freezes over (Scottish Power)

Member Name: Suedeapple

Product:	Scottish Power
Date:	24/02/04 (424 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: there are none, they may be marginally cheaper in some areas but thats not good enough to make up for the appalling customer service, use these with caution

Disadvantages: disrespectful, thieves, rude

I have never willingly been with Scottish Power, but somehow over the past 3 years my fuel supply accounts have migrated to them of (apparently) their own accord. What makes it worse is the first time this happened, the only reason I became aware of it was when I had a bog standard letter from my previous electrical supplier saying goodbye to me and asking me to fill in a survey form. I thought (mistakenly) that this had been sent to me in error, and so did nothing about it. A couple of weeks later I had a final bill from this supplier. What made it even worse is that as I paid by Direct Debit, they had taken the whole amount, (to cancel my outstanding debt with them) out. Even worse, this was after the winter quarter, which was the first quarter of the year, and so I found my bank account £137 lighter. I then noticed the same thing had happened with my gas supplier. i was loosing patience with this and so spoke to all the suppliers involved with this. I sent emails, I made telephone calls, both of my chosen suppliers said they had rejected the claim on my account but that Scottish Power were able to just take it after a few tries. Scottish Power told me I had signed up with them, when questioned just how this had happened, they suggested at first it was on my doorstep. As I never purchase anything this way I denied this could have happened and asked for proof. They then suggested that I had joined up over the telephone, again this was an out and out mistruth as again I never carry out any business that way. I asked for my account to be transferred back to the original suppliers and was told this couldnt be done until I had fulfilled my contractual obligations. At this point I started to fume and pointed out that I had no contractual obligations. I spoke to my previous suppliers again who told me the exact phrasing to use, and advised me this could be done. In the end I had to threaten to go to EnergyWatch about this matter, and hey ho my power supplies were trans
ferred back as if nothing had happened. Ofcourse I was missing a great amount of cash from my bank account for a 4 week period, but that did not seem to be a problem for anyone else but me, and as such they all denied taking theultimate responsibility for it.
This was in 2002, and once it had all been transferred back I wrote to all of the suppliers, told my elected ones that they were in no way to transfer my power supply without seeking confirmation from me personally. I advised Scottish Power that I would never seek to utilise their services, not even if hell froze over, and as such I wanted my details to be deleted from their database and a note made against my address to this effect.

I thought I had covered all bases. I thought I had sorted it all out. I thought it could never happen again, not any more.

Guess what, it did, not once....... but twice. I went through the whole rigmarole again on the second occasion, but this time took greater pains making my wishes clearly known to my elected power suppliers. Apparently, they informed me my fuel account can be "thieved" legitimately, I was not a happy bunny, but wrote to scottish Power and advised them that I had no contract with them, they did not supply any of my fuel, and if they insisted on doing so I would not be held liable for any costs incurred. Suprisingly this did the trick, and lo and behold all was back to normal again.........Until 3 months later that is........................

and the same thing happened again, this time though at least the gas supplier had taken note of my wishes and refused to allow my account to leave their hands, unfortunately the electricty company were unable to follow their counterparts behaviour. It took forever trying to find out how this kept happening, by this time I was so enraged I was past the threat stage and went straight to EnergyWatch. They contacted Scottish Power and got the same pathetic two sentence reply that I had. Thi
s was no good to me, I wanted to find out exactly how this had happened, surely the company would have this information, apparently not, or if they did they were so embarassed about it that they refused to answer this point. Energy Watch were shocked by their cavalier attitude and wrote again to them , requesting once more how this matter had come about and how they were going to ensure that this never happened in the future. By the third or fourth letter, Scottish Power obviously got so annoyed with this they sent me a cheque for £20.00 to cover any distress I might have suffered. Again Energy Watch were shocked by their manner and attitude, they said they would be willing to press further but doubtde they would be unable to get any other form of response out of them. And so thats where it has ended, for the moment. Every month I look carefully at my bills and check what is going on there. I just know that one day soon this whole sorry mess will start all over again.

My main word of advice to anyone, is never ever give Scottish Power your name, address or email information. Dont ever do a survey for them, Dont ever enter any of those competitions they keep promoting. The only reason they do these things is to get your personal information and then thieve your account. If you find your account has migrated to them, write to them and keep a copy, you will need it to prove to Energy Watch that you have tried to resolve the matter yourself, and no matter what Scottish Power say, dont take No for an answer.

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