AI Legalese Decoder: Your Solution to Not Paid Gas Bills and Disputes with Scottish Power
- November 9, 2023
- Posted by: legaleseblogger
- Category: Related News
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Moving into a New Flat in Scotland: A Complicated Gas and Electric Supplier Situation
The Move
In July, a group of four students moved into our flat in Scotland. We quickly discovered that no bills were included in our rental agreement. It turns out that Scottish Power was our gas and electric supplier, and we found that there were pay as you go meters installed for both gas and electric. Wanting to ensure our responsibilities were met, we took pictures of the meters when we first moved in.
The Scottish Power Hassle
Dealing with Scottish Power to transition our services into our names proved to be much more complicated than anticipated. It took numerous phone calls to 12 different numbers and spamming their email address to finally succeed in setting up an account.
The Billing Issue
Despite providing the necessary information and informing Scottish Power that we require both gas and electricity services, they have only been charging us for electricity. This has created a challenge as I have only been able to submit meter readings for electricity, and it wasn’t until last week that an engineer came to install a smart meter for electricity. Surprisingly, the engineer had no idea about the gas supply.
Repeated Attempts to Rectify the Situation
After realizing that we hadn’t been charged for gas in 4 months, I made numerous attempts to rectify the situation by contacting Scottish Power. However, they have been unresponsive. I’ve even sent an angry email, documenting my repeated attempts to notify them about the gas supply, but they still insist that there is no gas in the flat, despite the evidence to the contrary. While it may be convenient not to pay for gas, I am concerned about the potential consequences of not fulfilling our obligations.
How AI Legalese Decoder Can Help
AI Legalese Decoder can assist in understanding the legalities and consequences of not paying for gas and electricity. It can analyze the situation and provide recommendations for addressing the billing issue with Scottish Power. Additionally, it can help in drafting a formal communication to Scottish Power outlining our concerns and requesting a resolution to the billing discrepancies. AI Legalese Decoder could also provide insights into potential legal implications of not paying for gas and offer guidance on how to approach the situation in order to avoid any negative consequences.
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****** just grabbed a
According to Ofgem, you cannot be billed for gas or electricity used more than 12 months ago if you have not been correctly billed for it.
I would think the situation you find yourself in where theyÔÇÖre refusing to bill you would fall into this category.
Therefore, IÔÇÖd compile the evidence you have of your efforts to contact them, and do as others have suggested and put a sensible amount of money to one side in anticipation of receiving a bill.
If or when it does eventually arrive, pay only the balance thatÔÇÖs less than 12 months old, and cite the evidence of them refusing to bill you as the reason for not paying any older amounts.
Happened to me, one day you will receive a bill out of the blue. It may be weeks or even years, but rest assured it will arrive, and they will ask for it to be paid immediately. At the very minimum, I would put away a sensible amount to one side ready for that day to arrive.
I remember in the in the late 50’s early 60’s when my mother and father had the opposite problem. They decided they did not want gas into the house and had the supply cut and the meter removed. They started to get demands for estimated readings. Dad called them and told them he did not have a gas supply to the premises. They refused to believe him. One day when he was home there was a knock at the door and a man from the gas stood at the door. The man stated he had come to remove the gas supply and the meter. Dad invited him in and asked if he knew where the meter was. The man said he did. It was in the cellar (basement). Dad said, to the man’s surprise, to go ahead and showed him how to access the cellar. The man went down the stairs and after some minutes came back up and told my father that he could not find the meter and he did not appear to have one. Dad told him. ‘That it what I have been telling your company for months. You already removed it. Now go back to the company and tell them that. If the company takes me to court over unpaid gas usage I will be calling you to give evidence to what you have found today. He never heard another word.
They did exactly this to me when I bought a new build house and it took them over five years to eventually send me a bill. No amount of hassling them got them to sort it, it just came out of the blue, several bills over a period of a few days, with the last being for the full amount. I made it clear they could only backdate a year, explained that I could have had a better price if theyÔÇÖd responded when I first contacted them, and then kicked up a fuss about the stress and inconvenience. I settled on a years worth of gas at the lowest price I could have got on the market throughout the five year period minus ┬ú150 for the inconvenience and stress. I call that a good deal
We had something similar with electricity in a flat. When we moved in and tried to change suppliers we were told we didn’t have an electricty meter. They were very confused as to how we had electricity, they asked us if we were a new build (the flat had been there 20 years). In the end we phoned the national grid and had to have the meter reregistered. That process took a few months and then getting our energy company to let us pay took another year or so.
The process was like
1. reregister meter
2. tell Bulb we now have a meter number they should let us pay
3. Bulb say its complicated and they will sort it
4. Bulb ignore us for months
5. Tell Bulb they should charge us for electricity
6. Bulb ignore us
7. Tell Bulb again they should charge us
8. Bulb try and charge us for 20 years of electricity
9. Tell Bulb they are useless and contact the ombudsmen
10. Bulb take our 2 week average of electricity meter readings and calculate how much we would have paid in a year and bill us (it was a reasonable amount)
11. The ombudsmen tells them they have over charged us
12. we pay a year of electricity based on the ombudsmen and get some compensation for bulb being useless
13. we move out and are glad to never use bulb again
Anyway if there is a gas equivalent of national grid I would call them and check if your meter is registered. Our building manager though said he thought there were mulitple flats in our old building that never paid electricity because they never asked for readings
i would suggest you also take and record the/any meter readings and photo’s of the readings as well..
Just so we’re clear there both pay and go meters?
Go through the official complaints procedure, ask for a deadlock letter and then contact the energy ombudsman
Move company?
Expect the bill eventually, but if you move company they should be able to figure out and take over that supply proving you have a gas supply in the process.
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The answer to this usually seems to be human error – someone has typed in the meter number incorrectly or something like that.
According to OFGEM, Scottish Power should have an official complaints procedure, details of which should be on their webite or on their bills (I presume you have an electric bill). If you use this then they have 8 weeks to fix the issue, after which you should raise the issue with the Energy Ombudsman, who can compel Scottish Power to sort it out.
File a complaint. Keep filing a complaint. You could try switching who provides for your gas?
Send a reminder email every month to them let them know the siuation and document everything. You have done your part.
I work in a compliance and legal dept for a large energy brokerage, so might be able to help. If you can find your MPRN, use it in any communications you have with Scottish Power so they can cross reference it with the national grid, along with your meter readings. Also make sure you *very* clearly state your intention to pay for your gas supply. Like others have said, if they drag their feet on sorting this you can only be charged for 12 months worth of usage, but I’m pretty sure if you opened a case with the energy ombudsman/OFGEM it would go very much in your favour (likely, in compensatory territory for the terrible customer service at least). SP are notoriously shitty to deal with even on the side I work on, so I’d prepare for it to be a drawn out affair unfortunately. Just make sure you keep plenty of documentation so there’s no wiggle room if they start anything!
Dependent on your location speak to Citizens Advice or the extra help unit who have a designated team dealing with energy suppliers such as Scottish Power. They will fix the initial issue, canÔÇÖt always resolve a complaint, we ended up emailing our local MP who made contact with CEOs office. After 2 years, complaint was resolved, bill amended, compensation paid.
https://ehu.org.uk
Good luck.
Reminds me of one of the houses I had at uni.
It had a prepay meter for gas which allowed you to overrun by about £5.
The meter broke and stopped pumping gas so an engineer was called out and it was fixed/replaced. They must have left it in factory settings because we noticed we went past the £5 emergency and it kept going.
We had the warmest house out of everyone we knew once we realised what was happening and the meter was round -£250 when we left.
If you email the CEO youÔÇÖll get someone with more authority contacting you, so it might be worth trying that. I did that and got much quicker results. ItÔÇÖs crazy that you have to put so much effort into trying to pay them lol
Scottish Power are useless but you wonÔÇÖt be liable for whatever it is after 12-months as youÔÇÖve correctly informed them. I suspect though, theyÔÇÖll bill you in the 11th month (I speak from experience) so do put money aside in-case this happens.
As an FYI, loop in the CEOÔÇÖs email and his staff will look at it and still do nothing. ThatÔÇÖs the best way to say youÔÇÖve escalated and nothing happened post-12-months.