For the last five months we've been trying to get shot of Scottish Power. We tried every crazy approach you could try - telling them we didn't want to transfer the account to the new address; telling them we no longer wanted to use their services; asking them to close the old account at the previous address (or the current address as it was at the time).
Sadly all of these things were too complicated and meant that SP would ignore our instructions.
We asked them just to close the account at the end of our fixed rate tariff before we moved out of our old house, and enquired about the estimates for our new house.... which made us run away very fast. We also made the mistake of letting SP know our new address. I remember a phone call with one of their representatives that ended with me saying, "So there's no more paperwork needed; I don't need to cancel and house move requests or anything, that's it - you'll close the account and we'll hear nothing more from you?".
"Yes", was the confident reply.
Enter a new supplier (not one of the big six) who had supplied the previous owner; it was easy to sign up and sort out the tariffs, payment details etc and send them meter readings by replying to the emails their system sent us - no need to log in to your account...or rather forget what the password and user name was, request a reset, then reset it all, then login, then try and remember what the hell you were doing to start with and; finally update the meter readings.
However not all was as simple as it could have been ... we started getting letters and emails from SP at the new address saying how nice it will be to move our account for us and could we send our meter readings for the ... er fellas? What are you doing? We said "jog on" a couple of months ago, yet now you seem to have ignored that conversation and followed us home like some sort of deranged acquaintance we talked to that one time in the bar to be polite but were very clear that were not inviting home and...
I called our new supplier and they told us that this is a Tom Jones with the big six (it's not unusual...); often they have to let the other company take the account then claim it back some weeks later. I told them that they absolutely had our consent to do this and that SP had been told to close the account.
"No problem. You don't even have to speak to them again. We'll sort it out for you - but it might take up to 6 weeks or so". And they were true to their word (along with comedic unofficial comments about their competitor).
So now five months after the first calls to SP we're away but still they send us letters asking us to come back - despite being far more expensive that our supplier.
Sorry Scottish Power: It's not us - it's you. We need some time* to ourselves.
* Where "time" is measured in periods of no less than twenty five years.
Sadly all of these things were too complicated and meant that SP would ignore our instructions.
We asked them just to close the account at the end of our fixed rate tariff before we moved out of our old house, and enquired about the estimates for our new house.... which made us run away very fast. We also made the mistake of letting SP know our new address. I remember a phone call with one of their representatives that ended with me saying, "So there's no more paperwork needed; I don't need to cancel and house move requests or anything, that's it - you'll close the account and we'll hear nothing more from you?".
"Yes", was the confident reply.
Enter a new supplier (not one of the big six) who had supplied the previous owner; it was easy to sign up and sort out the tariffs, payment details etc and send them meter readings by replying to the emails their system sent us - no need to log in to your account...or rather forget what the password and user name was, request a reset, then reset it all, then login, then try and remember what the hell you were doing to start with and; finally update the meter readings.
However not all was as simple as it could have been ... we started getting letters and emails from SP at the new address saying how nice it will be to move our account for us and could we send our meter readings for the ... er fellas? What are you doing? We said "jog on" a couple of months ago, yet now you seem to have ignored that conversation and followed us home like some sort of deranged acquaintance we talked to that one time in the bar to be polite but were very clear that were not inviting home and...
I called our new supplier and they told us that this is a Tom Jones with the big six (it's not unusual...); often they have to let the other company take the account then claim it back some weeks later. I told them that they absolutely had our consent to do this and that SP had been told to close the account.
"No problem. You don't even have to speak to them again. We'll sort it out for you - but it might take up to 6 weeks or so". And they were true to their word (along with comedic unofficial comments about their competitor).
So now five months after the first calls to SP we're away but still they send us letters asking us to come back - despite being far more expensive that our supplier.
Sorry Scottish Power: It's not us - it's you. We need some time* to ourselves.
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| Outta here |
