Perhaps you bang your head on walls for fun. Maybe nothing excites you more than the prospect of hair shirt and chains, self-flagellation, fasting to near starvation and self-castration.
But however much you think you want to suffer, don't get involved with Scottish Power.
I called them last Wednesday to ask them to remove the gas meter from my uninhabitable property. This is a necessary step before the gas transporter SGN will permanently disconnect my gas supply so I can demolish the house.
It's Scottish Power's responsibility to deal with this meter removal, as the last supplier. I spent almost the entire afternoon last Wednesday trying to persuade them this is the case. None of them agreed, but none knew what to do. I was put on hold, passed around, and eventually gave up and emailed them.
We have exchanged numerous emails including over the weekend. They eventually told me I must call UK Power Networks. I told them that UKPN do not do gas. They insisted. I called UKPN. They told me gas is nothing to so with them. SP told me to call National Grid and gave me a number. That turned out to be the emergency gas leak number, who told me to get off the line if I didn't have a gas leak. I said I could arrange one if it helped but they weren't amused. I consulted SP again. They said I should definitely call NG. I found my own number. I called NG again, this time they gave me another number, which when I rang it was answered 'Cadent'. Cadent is a gas transporter. But not my gas transporter. More detective work revealed that NG has been split into at least two parts, one of which is National Grid Metering.
I rang them up yesterday. They are coming to remove my gas meter on Monday - hooray!
Meanwhile - SP has reopened my previously closed gas account, estimated my non-existent gas usage since the house fire last year, and conjured up a bill for £1,084 of gas that they invite me to make arrangements to pay. They have also sent me a letter declaiming GOOD NEWS - my direct debit shall be reduced from £97 to £47! (I haven't been direct debited for this account for over a year.)
I am also arranging with UKPN a site supply for the rebuild. UKPN insisted that I must contact SP about the electricity meter. I have just spent 105 minutes on the phone discussing this and the gas bill, which has now somehow reduced itself to £174. The reading remains the same as the one I gave them 14 months ago following which they sent me a final bill and a refund of my credit balance.
I feel as if someone has put LSD in my tea.
I don't shout at the people. They are presumably just trying to earn their money and pay their bills but SP clearly does not have the resources, the training, the systems, the motivation to do anything properly except send the bills out and collect money.
Meanwhile I still need the connection to the main removed. This costs c. £1,000 with the gas transporter SGN. But until you order and pay, they won't give you a date - they say something like 8-14 weeks (I was thinking about a fortnight). They also say that because of COVID they haven't done anything since March and propose first to replan all the held-over work. They expect somebody might be able to contact me in 3 weeks. You can potentially get your own contractor to do this but it can cost a lot more.
A lot of this is standard apparently. My project manager (no wonder he didn't volunteer to sort this out) claims he had a client who arranged a supply that involved some hole digging with highways' permission, a connection to the main supply and meter installation. The fool arranged for this to take place on the same day. The hole diggers were to come early on, the gang to do the connection late morning, and the meter installer after that. The connection gang came first, but went off to another job as the hole hadn't been dug. Then the hole diggers came and dug the hole. The meter installer came next, but couldn't fit the meter as there was no supply. The connection gang never came back that day.
The client now had the hole, so the following day he concentrated on rearranging the supply connection and the meter installation. While he was doing this, the gang who had dug the hole came back and filled it in, as planned.
Now - who should I ask to provide my site supply?
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Scottish Power new
Scottish Power new