"Our Commitment To You"

I have said before that profit is a measure of how much you overcharge your buyer, how much you underpay your staff or a combination of the two.

Scottish Power managed, in the space of one brief 'phone call, to encapsulate the 'overcharge your customer' approach beautifully.

I was a Scottish Power customer until I realised that next year I would potentially be paying a small fortune for my gas and electricity. I have been with them for a number of years now with no problem and was with them when I lived in Edinburgh. I would even be happy to recommend them. But these days its about saving money wherever you can. So I took my annual consumption statement over to uSwitch and discovered alleged savings of £480 with someone else. £40 a month in my pocket rather than a power company's was too appealing. I signed up fully expecting to have a problem at some point. (Not quite my usual cynicism you understand but a pragmatic approach borne of experience. I switched supplier a number of years ago and ended up with my gas bills knackered. The leccy switch went fine but, despite my taking dual fuel from the new supplier as well, the gas went Pete Tong. I imagine that something similar will probably occur here. Big companies, for all their talk of customer care and 'our commitment to you', see you as one of millions: nothing special.)

And so it was that I received a 'phone call from a lovely Glaswegian lady from Scottish Power (paraphrased).

"Its ****** from Scottish Power. I understand your thinking of leaving us?"
"Yes. Actually the electricity should have switched yesterday."
"OK. Well we don't want to lose you as a customer so can I ask why it is your going?"
"Its the price basically. I've found a cheaper deal."
"Well I can offer you a tariff based on our prices at this time last year which will be guaranteed until next December. That should save about £200 off your bill."
"I understand I am going to save £480 on dual fuel by moving so your not really close."
"£480?"
"Yes."
"Was that from the company or a price comparison website?"
"A website.
"Well you might find that your direct debits are higher than you think. ... "

A kind of to-and-fro continued for a minute or two more before I decided I had had enough and said, "I'm not having this discussion. Thanks for your call. Bye." I was mildly annoyed.

Why? The key part for me is the offer of last years prices guaranteed for a year.

It is obvious that Scottish Power would not have been in touch to make this offer where it not for the fact that I have switched so their promise of "a straightforward discount on your energy costs" is empty. They would have been delighted to have had me as a customer sat on the higher rate for as long as they could. Of course they didn't want to lose me - I've been paying over the odds! Not only that, what they are really saying is that even if they did switch me to last year's prices they are still not going to do that at a loss so how many of their millions of other customers are they silently ripping off to the tune of hundreds of pounds? Millions of passive customers times hundreds of pounds equals big profits. I am not a gambling man but I would stick money on a bet that the company has not got in touch with all those customers they care so much about to offer them last year's prices.

Of course the right-wingers would argue that I, as an individual, have taken advantage of the market to save myself some money so, in that sense, the system works wonderfully. But that would be to completely miss the point I made in the first sentence and to condone profiteering.