Electricity Overcharging

[jaizan]

My late father arranged a business electricity contract with Scottish Power in March 2023.
The business is a farm & my elderly parents had been using about 3.5 kW h per day in recent years. So less than the typical domestic user.

The letter from Scottish Power on 4 March 2023 confirms a tariff with a standing charge of 66.24p. Variable tariff.

All of the bills received from 1 April to his death in December 2023 have a standing charge of 192.9p. So this is almost 3 times the agreed figure.

After his death, bills addressed to "The Occupier" have a daily standing charge of around the 66 p mark.

I gather he phoned them several times about this and was told to read the small print. My sister also encountered unprofessional service from their call centre.


1 Would it be in any way reasonable to have contract terms which allow Scottish Power to treble the standing charge (approximately), without even informing the customer in advance of the bill ?

2 Would any any board members on business tariffs like to share details of standing charges applied in 2023 ? Was a trebling of the standing charge in April 2023 normal ?

3 I have raised a formal complaint against Scottish Power. The first reply is BS. He is even telling me to read the t&c attached, yet he has attached a bill from another customer, not T&C. Their actual T&C don't seem to include anything about variable pricing.

Do I have to wait the 8 weeks for my complaint to fester with these people, before taking the matter to the Ombudsman ?

Should I consider other avenues, such as the small claims court ?

[mc2fool]

3 I have raised a formal complaint against Scottish Power. The first reply is BS. He is even telling me to read the t&c attached, yet he has attached a bill from another customer, not T&C. Their actual T&C don't seem to include anything about variable pricing.

Do I have to wait the 8 weeks for my complaint to fester with these people, before taking the matter to the Ombudsman ?

Should I consider other avenues, such as the small claims court ?

You don't have to wait for the full eight weeks if they've indicated that their response is a final one, and not just part of an ongoing back and forth.

You don't say where your father's business was but I had an issue with an energy supplier a few months back and after a few weeks of getting nowhere I contacted Citizens Advice, and they have direct lines into the suppliers' complaints depts and my issue got sorted within 48 hours. I don't know if energyadvice.scot is as good in Scotland but you may try contacting whichever is relevant to you for advice.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/making-complaint-about-your-energy-supplier-or-network-operator

[jaizan]

You don't say where your father's business was but I had an issue with an energy supplier a few months back and after a few weeks of getting nowhere I contacted Citizens Advice, and they have direct lines into the suppliers' complaints depts and my issue got sorted within 48 hours. I don't know if energyadvice.scot is as good in Scotland but you may try contacting whichever is relevant to you for advice.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/making-complaint-about-your-energy-supplier-or-network-operator

My parents business is a farm, although these days, practically all of the electricity consumption is for the house.

They're not in Scotland, but just happen to have Scottish Power as their supplier. Since changed to Eon.

Effectively, Scottish Power agreed a tariff & sent details out in March 2023.
Then from 1 April 2023, they were charging almost 3x the agreed daily standing charge, without even informing my father about this in advance.

[mc2fool]

My parents business is a farm, although these days, practically all of the electricity consumption is for the house.

They're not in Scotland, but just happen to have Scottish Power as their supplier. Since changed to Eon.

Effectively, Scottish Power agreed a tariff & sent details out in March 2023.
Then from 1 April 2023, they were charging almost 3x the agreed daily standing charge, without even informing my father about this in advance.

Yeah, I understood your complaint and agree that it doesn't sound right, but I can't answer your points 1 & 2 so I just answered point 3, and in particular your "other avenues" question by relaying the good (and fast) result I got by going through Citizens Advice. I recommend you give them a call.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/help/if-you-need-more-help-about-a-consumer-issue-energy/

[bungeejumper]

I think you'll find that business energy accounts are subject to different rules from consumer accounts, so I'm not entirely sure that Citizens' Advice would be able to help.

The pain of our own experience has faded somewhat, so I forget some of the details. But one of our business tenants had been suckered into a frankly outrageous five year contract with a small cowboy firm in Liverpool which had left her with very hefty unit charges in exchange for a very low standing charge. (So the other way round from the OP's parents, but you get my drift?)

That was bad enough, but the contract was still considered to be valid even after she'd gone bust and vacated the premises! We were told that we, or rather our new tenant, would have to continue with the larcenous contract even though neither of us had signed up for it!

It took us a month or three to get it sorted, and a lot of telephone calls. If memory serves, British Gas had seen this scenario before, and we eventually got it set aside with their help. Wish I could remember more details, but don't lose hope!

BJ

[mc2fool]

I think you'll find that business energy accounts are subject to different rules from consumer accounts, so I'm not entirely sure that Citizens' Advice would be able to help.

Yeah, I wondered that too, but they do have at least some advice for small businesses, and it sounds like the OP's is a "microbusiness", which apparently gets extra protections*. So I still think it's worth giving them a call. At worst it'll just be a few minutes of wasted time, and even if they can't help directly they might be able to give some useful hints and/or point the OP in the direction to go next...

* E.g. "If you're a 'microbusiness' you can only be billed for energy you've used in the last 12 months" https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consu ... rgy-bills/)

[jaizan]

Yeah, I understood your complaint and agree that it doesn't sound right, but I can't answer your points 1 & 2 so I just answered point 3, and in particular your "other avenues" question by relaying the good (and fast) result I got by going through Citizens Advice. I recommend you give them a call.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/help/if-you-need-more-help-about-a-consumer-issue-energy/

Thank you for the advice. That's much appreciated and is certainly on the list of things to do.

[Hallucigenia]

2 Would any any board members on business tariffs like to share details of standing charges applied in 2023 ? Was a trebling of the standing charge in April 2023 normal ?

You can't look at standing charge in isolation, it's part of a package along with the unit charge and one may go up to get the other lower. So for instance our old plan (on a site that uses a lot more electricity than you) in 2023 was paying £6.19/day standing charge, but a lower unit charge.

So I wonder if either you've been switched from a plan with higher unit charges and a low standing charge, to vice versa, or whether something's happened like they thought you were a domestic customer and got switched to a business tariff.

It's difficult for those who haven't had to negotiate business utility deals in the last few years to understand just how chaotic it's been in recent years, I know some people who ended up paying over £1/unit, I think the most we ever paid was 90p/unit for a short while.