2015 was a year of woe for Scottish Power's customers

Hundreds of Independent readers told tales of woe of the company miscalculating usage and suddenly increasing direct debits and then chasing customers for cash that they didn’t owe

The second-most company complained about by readers to me this year was Scottish Power. Hundreds of you told tales of woe of the company miscalculating usage and suddenly increasing direct debits and then chasing customers for cash that they didn’t owe.

Gary Waldram said Scottish Power raised his direct debit by 62 per cent. “That was totally unfair and unnecessary,” he said. “If enough people complain, it may force suppliers to improve the algorithms they use to calculate new direct debit payments and allow customers to keep more money in their own bank accounts.”

Many of you did contact me to complain, and in almost every instance Scottish Power backed down and put things right. AM Reilly reported: “Due to your article, I have negotiated a much lower monthly direct debit adjustment.”

After being bombarded with letters from Scottish Power trying to increase his direct debit, Joe Rock said: “I suspect that Scottish Power underestimates the cost of the energy when making the first quote to win the account under the switching process. Then they seem to try to cover this up by modifying the direct debit.”

Meanwhile, Brendan Flanagan was fed up about the incorrect transfer of his gas supply. He said: “The mistake was not Scottish Power’s fault, but its response since the problem came to light has been inept, dilatory, at times arrogant and robotic.”

The company apologised and handed a goodwill payment to Brendan, an outcome he was satisfied with. But he added: “Thank you for your help. It shouldn’t be necessary, but it clearly is.”

That’s a point I return to again and again about all the firms you write to me about. They’re usually quick to respond positively when there’s the risk of publicity about their cock-ups, but otherwise often seem to treat customers with contempt. And that’s simply not acceptable.

Scottish Power eventually gave me an explanation for all their problems. Neil Clitheroe, Scottish Power’s retail and generation chief, told me: “We’ve invested £200m to improve our customer service. It meant moving all our millions of customers to a new system.

For the vast majority it worked perfectly well. But we’ve had difficulty with a small number of customers. Over the last year it’s been tens of thousands, but we’ve reduced that now to a few thousand.

“We will make sure that if anyone’s lost out financially, they get compensation for the issues. We will also make sure we get them on to the best tariffs for them.”

They kept true to their word for all the readers who subsequently contacted me, and fed up customers kept coming right on through the summer and autumn.

However I remain hopeful of a major improvement from the firm in 2016.

s.read@independent.co.uk

twitter: @simonnread