Scottish Power wants £500 – but won’t read my meter properly . . .

I HAVE had several problems with Scottish Power since it started supplying energy to my home nearly two years ago.

In January 2016, I received a statement suggesting it had never received an electricity reading, even though a meter-reader comes around every three months.

A meter-reader was supposed to visit on February 17, but failed to turn up. The firm then wrote saying it had received gas, but not electricity, readings.

It proposed we start with opening readings that were considerably lower than the closing readings I had agreed with my previous supplier. This would have resulted in me paying for the same electricity twice.

The invoice was corrected and I was offered a £20 goodwill payment.

I then received an estimated invoice claiming I owed £508.37 for electricity and my direct debit was increased from £47.52 to £278 per month.

I have supplied actual readings and my meter has been read since, but I can still get no sense out of Scottish Power.

Incidentally, it has put me on a business account even though it knows I work from home. I was told this would be cheaper.

D. H., Cumbria.

ScottiSh Power scores two out of five stars on the Which? website for customer service and it’s not difficult to see why.

the firm admits it made ‘highly over-inflated’ estimates of your electricity use between January and March this year, which led to your direct debits being increased.

As a result, your account went £471.18 into credit. Scottish Power has now refunded £200 and, as agreed with you, credited the remainder to your account.

the direct debit for electricity has been reset at £26 a month. Your gas account is correct.

For these errors, Scottish Power made a £50 goodwill payment. it also paid £ 60 into your bank account to apologise for failing to keep the appointment on February 17.

But it struck me there was a further issue. Residential customers benefit from rules preventing energy firms billing more than a year in arrears if it has failed to ask for or collect a meter reading.

Similar rules apply to very small businesses. these are defined by the energy industry as those using no more than 293,000kWh of gas or 100,000kWh of electricity each year; or those having fewer than ten employees and an annual turnover of less than €2 million (£1.56 million).

You qualify on both counts. it appears no electricity readings were taken between when you signed up in September 2014 and when Scottish Power woke up this year. i asked it to apply these rules and it has refunded a further £372.56.

Energy firms operate different time limits for micro-businesses, ranging from the one year used by British Gas Business, Scottish Power, EDF and most others, to the less generous four years on gas bills by Gazprom and corona Energy.

one final point: Scottish Power says you have a business account because you were registered under your business name — and it confirms this is cheaper than having a residential tariff.

I WANT to transfer £1,000 from my wife’s tax allowances to my own using the marriage allowance.

I sent the Notice of Transfer of Surplus Income Tax Allowances for the Tax Year 2014/15 form to HMRC, which was returned with a note saying I had to apply online. When I did, I received a reply saying we should hear within 14 weeks. But I have had no further response despite writing again.

W. C., Chesterfield.

You sent a form that relates to the blind persons and the married couples allowances. these are different from the marriage allowance.

the married couples perk gives an extra tax allowance if one of the partnership was born before April 6, 1935. it is worth up to £835.50 per year but is gradually reduced for those with higher incomes to just £322 per year.

the marriage allowance allows someone with a low income to transfer part of their tax allowance to their higher-earning partner.

For the current tax year it is possible to transfer up to £1,100, which could cut the taxpayer’s tax bill by up to £220.

the person giving away their allowance must be a non-taxpayer, so their income must be less than £11,000 a year. the person receiving the allowance must be a basic-rate taxpayer, which means having an income of up to £43,000 per year.

the email you received was sent out to those who registered an interest in the marriage allowance. hMRc is keen for people to apply via their website — it’s very straightforward.

You have now applied successfully and are receiving the allowance. congratulations.

I HAD a cash value of £713 on my Littlewoods card. I did not buy any goods for six months and now it has told me without any prior warning that I have lost this credit. I protested without success.

T. C., Middlesex.

ShoP Direct, which runs the Littlewoods catalogue, won’t budge.

the Rewards loyalty scheme gives members who regularly purchase products a reward to spend at Littlewoods. the rules have, i am told, ‘appeared in every Littlewoods catalogue since the launch of Rewards in 2009’.

they can also be found online and through customers’ accounts.

these rules say that members’ rewards will lapse if they do not make a purchase for a six-month season (from January to June and July to December). Your last purchase was in April 2014, so your rewards lapsed in January 2015.

i feel Shop Direct’s attitude is pedantic. it would be better to write to customers warning that their rewards are expiring.

i apologise for my lack of success and sympathise that you’ve lost a valuable amount of spending money. But i’m surprised it appears to have taken more than a year for you to complain to Littlewoods.