ScottishPower sent six cheques in the name of a dead brother after his sole executor told the company he had died. The writer also received a debt collection letter demanding £130 on the late brother’s gas account, despite having notified ScottishPower of the death.
The company had also owed a £430 credit on the electricity account. It issued a cheque in the dead man’s name that could not be cashed, then reissued it in the same name after many emails. The writer was later told a third cheque would take four weeks to manually process.
ScottishPower and the £430 credit
Since then, the writer has received four more cheques, all in the late brother’s name. ScottishPower has now told the writer the electricity account will be closed because there is no credit left on it.
BR of Fife described a similar experience, saying: “In my emails to ScottishPower, I was addressed variously as ‘Dear undefined’ and ‘Dear Customers Name’”. He received a cheque for the £312 credit on his late mother’s dual-fuel account, made out to her, along with a bill in her name for £191 and a letter saying the account was clear.
Bereavement cases at ScottishPower
In March, a newly bereaved widow reported anguish after ScottishPower bombarded her late husband with letters, emails and calls over nine months. LW of London said the company also sent emails to her late husband about an unpaid direct debit weeks after she had informed it of his death, and said that happened in 2018.
ScottishPower said bereavement is “incredibly distressing” and that it strives to provide “care and understanding” to those affected. It added: “Regrettably,” in a very small number of cases the level of care and understanding has not been met, and that it reviews “what we could have done better” in each of those cases.
Uncashed cheques and refunds
The repeated cheques point to a practical problem for executors who are trying to settle an estate: the account can be marked for closure, yet the refund still keeps arriving in the dead person’s name. ScottishPower said it had issued the refund in JB’s case but conceded that repeated uncashable cheques in the name of her deceased brother were not “the standard of service it aims for”.
For readers handling a relative’s accounts, the immediate step is to keep records of every letter, cheque and email and push the company to correct the name on any refund paperwork before the estate is left chasing the same payment again.
