A dad was forced to cancel his family's first holiday in years after Scottish Power took more than £1,500 out of his bank account.
Abu Meron was left in shock after Scottish Power repeatedly raised the prices of their energy bills, and then took two payments of £756, one in June and another in July. The dad-of-two then had to cancel a family holiday to Paris which would have been the first getaway in years for him and his front line NHS worker wife.
Abu began to investigate and contacted the bank to cancel his direct debits. He then complained to Scottish Power, where he claims he was told to "deal with it".
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He discovered that the £1,512 taken out across June and July was an error from the company, who have since admitted fault and apologised, after being contacted by Edinburgh Live. The money is now in the process of being refunded, and Scottish Power have apologised for the inconvenience caused and admitted they should have picked up on the huge change in amount coming out of the customers bank account.
Abu said: "I live with my wife and two children in a four-bedroom detached house but we only use three of the bedrooms. My wife works full time for NHS Lothian, I am full time self employed, my son is studying at university and my daughter is at high school.
"My electricity and gas supplier were Tonik Energy. I always paid my bills through direct debit and they used to charge me £108.61 per month for gas and electricity. On November 2020 I have noticed that Scottish Power took over my account and as I noticed that they are also charging £108.61 per month, I had no concern about it.
"They have continued charging me the same amount until September 27 last year and from October 27 to December 29 Scottish Power charged me £159.00 per month."
Abu said the amount then continued to jump until it reached £321 a month in April, after the energy price cap was raised significantly. All payments were made via direct debit, and Abu reports there was no correspondence or information from the company.
He was then charged £756 on June 27, with the same amount taken again the following month. Abu said he only noticed when he checked his bank statement after seeing his balance would not be enough to pay for the hotel he had booked in Paris.
He continued: "I found out It was Scottish Power. I made a call to customer service and asked about this to find out about the sudden increase in direct debit without my prior knowledge. I found the customer service adviser very unprofessional she said 'This is your bill you have to pay.'
"[But] I have an installed smart meter through Scottish power which is giving way less charging fees than the direct debit they are taking out. I went to the bank and made a formal complaint about it and cancelled my direct debit.
"I have contacted Utility Warehouse to supply gas and electricity, and they offered me £165.00 per month but Scottish Power is not handing over my supply to Utility Warehouse. We really work hard for our living when we see £108 per month bill goes up to £756 that is when we feel that it not only ripping us off it is modern robbery."
A Scottish Power Spokesperson said: "We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused to Mr Meron. This appears to be due to a mistake in the meter reading provided in April of this year, which meant it looked like much more energy had been used than had been the case.
"We should have picked up on this when we installed new smart meters in July, but didn’t, and this was our error. The account has now been rebilled to reflect actual energy use and we’re working to finalise the account balance in conjunction with Mr Meron and his bank, as he has requested a refund of direct debits from them. We’ve advised Mr Meron of this and will keep in touch until everything is fully resolved."
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