Scottish Gas Don't Want Customers

This morning I got a letter from Scottish Gas, triggered by having the meter read the other day. I woke up with no intention of even looking at switching suppliers, to elevating it to a high priority, after I read the letter. Parts of it are wrong, it's computer generated and basically adds up to "we don't want customers".

The Background:

I got central heating put in about 18 months ago now, which meant gas heating and the option of gas cooking after I got a gas cooker. Scottish Gas had the contract to do this and gain new customers, who could switch afterwards if they liked. It was a cold winter and I underestimated how much I was using, and paid far too little at the time leaving me in arrears. After I was made aware of this, I set up a payment plan, as it was convenient for me to pay every two weeks along with my electricity, council tax etc.

I have been paying these regularly as the plan was set up, sometimes it'd be a few days different, but still every two weeks, sometimes it'd be a little less than I'd agreed to but I was still paying.

The Letter:

We've had to cancel your payment plan

Dear Mr Sinclair

We wrote to you recently about some missed payments on your gas payment plan. Unfortunately, as we still haven't received any payments, we've had to cancel your plan.

Setting your plan up again

If you'd like to set up your payment plan again, please contact us on the number at the top of this letter.

If you decide not to set up your payment plan again we'll send you bills every quarter, which you'll need to pay by cash or debit/credit card as soon as you receive them.

Your credit balance

As there is a credit balance on your account of £35.84, which includes £35.84 credit for gas we'll carry this forward to your next quarterly bill.

Here to help

Just let us know if there's anything we can do for you or if you have any questions you can always visit us at scottishgas.co.uk

Yours sincerely

Clare Barrows

Head of Billing and Payments

The Response

The part about cancelling the plan was computer generated by the fact that a couple of the payments had arrived a little after the dates it was told to expect therefor it automatically did what it was programmed to do, cancel the plan and send out the letter. This is a reason, it's not an excuse. This software or how it works has nothing to do with me. It doesn't appear to be flexible enough to be accurate either.

The letter starts with a punishment triggered by a flat out lie forcing much more inconvenience on my part to stay with Scottish Gas.

They have received every payment I've made, I could understand if I was still in arrears and not as close to breaking into credit as had been planned, but I'm now in credit. I struggle to budget for quarterly bills. If I'm expected to pay a huge bill as it drops through the door, it's almost inevitable that I won't be able to afford it, that the company will have to pursue the red letter dance, ending up in having to set up a payment plan to pay off a bigger bill.

This action only has negative consequences both for me and Scottish Gas. This is how they expect to keep customers? Take away from them the way they're most comfortable to pay and expect them to pay another way which will be a problem?

Why not set up a direct debit I hear you ask, it's what all companies would prefer we do for their bills, they even give discounts for that. My balance is always borderline, that a direct debit, even a small one coming off a day early sends me into bank charge country. I simply do not trust companies with the ability to reach into my account and take whatever sum they deem fit whenever they like. Yes there are comebacks, refunds etc but that all involves extra hassle I can avoid by denying companies the ability to do that in the first place. I don't have an objection when it's a flat fee on a set date every month, I can budget for that. When the amount is wildly flexible and the day / date flexible, I can't. I've been in a vicious cycle before with bank charges triggering other bank charges. I'm not going down that road again.

To me this is just a "we don't want your custom" letter. This is fine, they don't deserve it. There are other companies who do actually want customers, some of whom provide gas.

I phoned Scottish Gas to ask them why I should stay with a company who doesn't want customers, the best I got was the re-setting up of a payment plan which takes about 10 days, and an apology. To me, returning something they should never have taken away with an apology is the bare minimum, it's not any incentive to stay with Scottish Gas.

I've let them know about this post to see if they want to respond in the comments. In the mean time I'm now on the search for another gas supplier; one who actually want customers.