Scottish Power nonsense

In message , Peter Saxton writes

I wrote letters in protest when essential utilities were first threatened with privatisation. Instead of going to the Norweb or Gas Board office where staff used to have a clue, you have to accept that you are dealing with automatons who work from a script.

You obviously have internet accss, so I recommend signing up to their online system and just enter your meter readings there. Dead easy! See:-

I have signed up to their online system.

The whole point is the following:

I get an email saying I've been asked for my meter reading when I haven't, I then submit my meter reading, I then get an email saying that I haven't submitted my meter reading, This email said that they'd therefore estimate my meter reading despite it only being 7-8 hours after a warning that they would only give me two days to submit my reading, They respond to my emails by say: "Thank you for contacting ScottishPower's Online Energy customer service centre - we have now received your email and logged your enquiry. We will endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible."

but then go on to say:

"Please be aware that this message is generated from an unmanned mailbox. We cannot respond to any mail to this address."

The problem isn't that I haven't signed up to their online system - the problem is that they don't appear to have any sense.

I think you may be somewhat economical with the facts.

My emails include the following:-

a) If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please delete it then advise the sender immediately by reply e-mail to ScottishPower snipped-for-privacy@scottishpower.co.uk.

b) An e-mail reply to this address may be subject to monitoring for operational reasons or lawful business practices.

c) Please be aware that this message is generated from an unmanned mailbox. We cannot respond to any mail to this address.

My brain hurts :-)

Flop

In message , Peter Saxton writes

I have an nPower story, it's long, I'm afraid.

A lady friend of mine had been "with nPower" for a year or three when they off-loaded their meter readings to a company called "Meter Reading Services".

They managed to read her metric meter as an Imperial one, and sent her a bill for about 3 times what my spreadsheet said it should be. (I used to do a forecast for her).

I quickly sussed out their mistake and phoned them to inform them, and they insisted on speaking to her as well. I thought they understood, and they asked for another meter reading, which we supplied whilst we were still on the phone.

About a week later she received a bill for the new reading, but still inaccurate by about 300%. Another phone call during which the stupid girl asked me to "look if there's an M and a 3 on the meter".

To humour her I went outside and looked and of course it said M3. I returned and bellowed at the phone that it DID have M3 on the dial because it was a bloody metric meter!

The girl said to my friend, "I can tell he's annoyed"!

I asked them to send a re-calculated bill, but when it arrived it contained the same error.

It took a letter and phone calls to EnergyWatch before I got the name of an nPower supervisor and called again, insisting on speaking to him, which took several attempts.

I had meanwhile registered on her account and printed off her bills for the last couple of years, and after the supervisor's efforts I found that the account record had disappeared, and there were only the last two bills shown.

I spoke to him again, and challenged him with what I had discovered on the website, and the fact that I now held better records than them! It was clear that they hadn't a clue when her meter had been changed to metric, so they had scrubbed her bill records! I started talking compensation for a 70 y/o pensioner and he hastily told me that they would cancel her gas bill liability for the period of three months it took them to correct one simple error on the first bill, even when it was spelled out to them. So we took another reading, and started from scratch. :-)

The £50 or so saving wasn't really worth the stress it caused a 70 y/o pensioner, and I have read many similar stories of bills escalating to thousands of pounds, terrifying for the elderly who don't have someone close who can sort it.

She is with Brt Gas now for dual fuel, and on D/D.

Not at all.

It will if you think that people lie about the content of an email they receive simply to complain about the content of an email.

You are too cynical for your own good.

I repeat. Scottish Power sent emails with the following content:

"We will endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible. Please be aware that this message is generated from an unmanned mailbox. We cannot respond to any mail to this address."

You may think that I am lying about that but I can live with it.

I think it is probably quite simple (though I have not the actual emails, but have received similar ones).

I suspect the email you received did *not* come from "ScottishPower snipped-for-privacy@scottishpower.co.uk" but from some other email address.

a) is telling you what to do if you received the email in error.

b) is telling you that any emails sent to ScottishPower snipped-for-privacy@scottishpower.co.uk may be subject to monitoring.

c) is saying that the mailbox which sent you the notification (which is different from the address in a) & b)) is unmanned and replies to it will not be read.

It was not my intention to accuse you.

Tongue in cheek, I was attempting to show that SP have no idea about communications.

For example, how do you delete an email and then reply to it - to an unmanned mailbox.

Online you can complain to SP about anything - so long as you provide a meter reading.

Again - sorry for the misunderstanding. mea culpa.

Flop

Accepted

OK

True

Crazy

No problem.

I /hate/ this. It effectively means that it is impossible to have a "conversation" which allows their customer disservice department to avoid answering any questions.

Yes. They want to make it as hard as possible for you to contact them as this saves them money.

They are not the only ones. I used to get a very similiar issue from EON.

I complained about it. They apologized. They did it again*