A major UK energy provider has come under fire for sending a late customer six cheques. ScottishPower has sent a debt collection letter to a house demanding £130 owing on the homeowner's late brother’s gas account.
The bereaved family member told the Guardian: "I am his sole executor and had informed it of his death. The company, meanwhile, owed a £430 credit on his electricity account. It eventually paid this with a cheque issued in my late brother’s name, which could not therefore be cashed."
"Many emails later, the company reissued it, again in my brother’s name. I was told a third cheque would take four weeks to ‘manually’ process."
"Since then, I’ve been issued four more cheques, all in my brother’s name."
ScottishPower has now informed me that his electricity account will be closed as there is no credit left on it, and it has stopped replying to my emails.
ScottishPower informed the newspaper that bereavement is “incredibly distressing” and it strives to provide “care and understanding” to those affected. “Regrettably,” it says, “in a very small number of cases, the level of care and understanding has not been met, and in each of these cases we review what we could have done better.”
What to do when notifying ScottishPower of a death
When you notify Scottish Power that a loved one has died, it will need the following information to help us make any changes you need:
- The name and address of the account holder
- Your name
- Your relationship to the account holder
- Your phone number
- The date of death of the account holder
- Up-to-date meter readings for the relevant property (if possible)
- The name of the person responsible for the energy bills of the relevant property going forward (if someone is taking over the account/property)
- The address where correspondence should be sent (known as a forwarding address)
It adds: "We may ask for a Letter of Confirmation or a Grant of Representation from the person responsible for the estate or the solicitor. Occasionally, we may ask for a copy of the death certificate."
