Richard Coles blasted Scottish Power for treating him like a shoplifter, instead of a customer.
The radio presenter, 61, posted a screenshot from his latest Scottish Power bill, which read: “We’ve sent your bill, don’t forget to pay.”
The ex-vicar, who retired from the clergy in 2022, slammed the energy company’s treatment of its customers.
He posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Dear @ScottishPower I’m a customer, not a shoplifter.
“Why can’t you address your customers with courtesy?”
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He was soon inundated with similar stories from people up and down the country.
Jo Welsh (@rjowelsh) tweeted: “Horrendous customer service. They held on to over £900 of my elderly uncle’s money for over a year – he’d overpaid because he had been unable to submit meter readings.
“Trying to sort this out required energy he didn’t have. Finally resolved after his death.”
VinylDealsUK added: “I have similar issues with Severn Trent Water. They called me a few days after my bill was issued and behaved like I hadn’t ever paid my bills. Of course I paid it.”
They added: “Meanwhile, people with real issues that need support, can’t get through to anyone. It’s nonsense.”
Paige814 simply responded: “I laughed when I read that as its just so…rude.”
This comes as ratings of energy companies’ customer service continue to plummet to new depths, according to a new survey.
Around 33 percent of people are unhappy with how long it took to speak to someone who could help, with 31 percent unhappy with how long it took to get an answer to their query, according to watchdog Which?.
These figures rose with 49 percent of Scottish Power customers and 47 percent of Ovo customers saying they were unhappy with the wait to get through to someone who could help, in a survey of more than 3,000 members of the public.
One Scottish Power customer told Which? “It took ages to get hooked up to live chat. The AI chatbot was useless and it took so long to get the answer I needed.”
The findings follow Turner Prize-winning artist Sir Grayson Perry revealing he had spent “about three hours at least” on the phone to energy supplier EDF after they had tried to raise his monthly electricity bill from £300 to £39,000.
