{"id":130561,"date":"2023-09-19T19:49:01","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T19:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluemull.com\/?p=130561"},"modified":"2023-09-19T19:49:01","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T19:49:01","slug":"scottish-power-apologises-after-woman-was-left-with-400-a-month-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluemull.com\/world-news\/scottish-power-apologises-after-woman-was-left-with-400-a-month-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Power apologises after woman was left with \u00a3400-a-month bills"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Scottish Power apologises after retired midwife was left with \u00a3400-a-month bills after paying for her neighbour&#8217;s usage due to a crossed meter<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Judith Stenner, 72, from Manchester, said she has endured a &#8216;bit of a marathon&#8217;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>She\u00a0moved into flat in 2016 but started to notice higher bills in 2018 and 2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Scottish Power has apologised after a retired midwife was left with \u00a3400-a-month bills after paying for her neighbour&#8217;s usage due to a crossed meter.<\/p>\n<p>Judith Stenner, 72, from Manchester, said she has endured a &#8216;bit of a marathon&#8217; to try and resolve the situation which saw her energy bills increase from \u00a360-a-month to more than \u00a3400.<\/p>\n<p>Scottish Power told Ms Stenner that she was a &#8216;high energy user&#8217;, which prompted the mother-of-two to try everything possible to reduce her energy usage &#8211; including rarely cooking at home and turning her heating off during the winter months.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Stenner said she went into a &#8216;numb phase that nobody is believing you and nobody is listening&#8217; as she struggled to resolve the issue and her bills kept rising despite becoming a &#8216;bit obsessive about switching everything off all the time&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Her case was raised in the House of Commons and MPs heard the breast cancer survivor had been paying the energy bills of a family-of-four next door for much of the six years she had lived in the flat.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/19\/18\/75604397-12536641-image-a-1_1695143464823.jpg\" height=\"476\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Judith Stenner (pictured here with her daughter Semra Kurutac), 72, from Manchester, said she has endured a &#8216;bit of a marathon&#8217; to try and resolve the situation which saw her energy bills increase from \u00a360-a-month to more than \u00a3400<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/19\/18\/75605825-12536641-image-a-3_1695144294093.jpg\" height=\"422\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Labour&#8217;s Afzal Khan, who represents Ms Stenner as the MP for Manchester Gorton, insisted no vulnerable person &#8216;should be going to bed cold at night&#8217; while Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt condemned the &#8216;appalling situation&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>It was finally identified this summer that her meter was crossed although it took another 14 weeks for further necessary changes to be made.<\/p>\n<p>Labour&#8217;s Afzal Khan, who represents Ms Stenner as the MP for Manchester Gorton, insisted no vulnerable person &#8216;should be going to bed cold at night&#8217; while Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt condemned the &#8216;appalling situation&#8217;.<\/p>\n<h3>READ MORE:\u00a0Martin Lewis reveals his top tips to stop overpaying on direct debit energy bills &#8211; and they could save you up to \u00a3200<\/h3>\n<p>Scottish Power apologised for the &#8216;issues and distress&#8217; experienced by Ms Stenner, adding it was &#8216;unacceptable and falls far below the level of service we aim to provide&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>The company added any overpayments and compensation would be considered as they recalculate the account.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Stenner said: &#8216;It&#8217;s been frustrating, not to be heard, not to be listened to, it&#8217;s damaged me financially, my life has probably been on a bit of a hold because I&#8217;ve done a lot of things, but more than that it&#8217;s the wider issue of company policy, inefficiency, bad training, bad management.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Ms Stenner questioned how many other people are experiencing similar treatment with other companies, including energy firms.<\/p>\n<p>She said she moved into the flat in 2016 but the error became more obvious in 2018 and 2019 when there was a hike in her bills after a family became her neighbours.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Stenner said &#8216;my head was a shed&#8217; trying to deal with the issue, saying: &#8216;You&#8217;re just not thinking logically. I&#8217;m used to fighting battles in the NHS, I&#8217;m used to defending women, I&#8217;m used to all sorts of issues, but personally I didn&#8217;t realise it at the time but, as they say up here, that did my head in.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/19\/18\/75605365-12536641-image-a-2_1695143509049.jpg\" height=\"450\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>ScottishPower apologised for the &#8216;issues and distress&#8217; experienced by Ms Stenner, adding it was &#8216;unacceptable and falls far below the level of service we aim to provide&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>She said it felt as though a &#8216;weight has gone off my shoulders&#8217; following the intervention in the House of Commons, saying of her experience: &#8216;I&#8217;ve gone past crying, I&#8217;ve gone past shouting, you just go into a numb phase that nobody is believing you and nobody is listening, what am I going to do.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But fortunately, which I should have done sooner, once my daughter was involved with her partner, they just took things in hand and that&#8217;s where we are today.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Ms Stenner also said: &#8216;It&#8217;s been a bit of a marathon and I&#8217;m very grateful to everybody, but I just hope there&#8217;s a possible wider implication that my case could be a positive help for other people.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Semra Kurutac said it had been &#8216;a little bit of a whirlwind&#8217; since her mother&#8217;s case was raised in Parliament, as she thanked Mr Khan and his team for their &#8216;wonderful&#8217; help and Ms Mordaunt for her response.<\/p>\n<p>Piano teacher Ms Kurutac, who lives in Wiltshire, said: &#8216;Mum&#8217;s had electricians round to check her appliances in her flat, she&#8217;s even gone and got a new immersion heater installed that we now know was completely unnecessary.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But in the winter months her bills last year got up to just over \u00a3400-a-month and we calculated &#8211; we&#8217;ve been taking readings ever since we got involved in April &#8211; that her bills, including standing charge, shouldn&#8217;t be much more than \u00a380-a-month based on her current usage.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/19\/18\/75605881-12536641-image-a-10_1695144578442.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Semra Kurutac said it had been &#8216;a little bit of a whirlwind&#8217; since her mother&#8217;s case was raised in Parliament, as she thanked Mr Khan and his team for their &#8216;wonderful&#8217; help and Penny Mordaunt (pictured) for her response<\/p>\n<p>Mr Khan said: &#8216;Judith has been treated terribly, and gaslit for years on the cost of her utilities.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8216;I believe energy providers should be working for their customers, but it feels too often they are working against them. The entire sector needs to get its act together.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>A Scottish Power spokeswoman said: &#8216;We&#8217;re really sorry about the issues and distress experienced by Mr Khan&#8217;s constituent, which is unacceptable and falls far below the level of service we aim to provide.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Since we visited the property and identified the crossed meter issue at the start of the summer, we&#8217;ve been working with the other energy supplier involved &#8211; who also had to take certain actions &#8211; to get this matter sorted as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We&#8217;re now at the point where we will be able to accurately calculate the constituent&#8217;s actual energy usage and costs and we are in touch with her directly and with Mr Khan&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We apologise again that it has taken longer than we would have liked to resolve this matter.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12536641\/Scottish-Power-apologises-retired-midwife-400-month-bills-six-years.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scottish Power apologises after retired midwife was left with \u00a3400-a-month bills after paying for her neighbour&#8217;s usage due to a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - 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