ChargePlace Scotland

I recently downloaded the app prior to a visit to the Isle of Mull as the hotel has a ChargePlace Scotland charger. On arrival I tried to charge a few times, tried each of the different connectors but alas it didn’t work. There was a faster charger just down the road in Craignure so I went there and tried to use that, again the charge failed and after a few attempts I gave up. The support people were very helpful but ultimately couldn’t get me charging even with remote access to the chargers. They said if I had an rfid card it would probably work and that the problem is with trying to use the app. As a result of the attempts to charge we ended up with £700 of holds on our bank account which was a bit of a shock! Apparently that too wouldn’t have happened with a charge place Scotland or other compatible RFID card. So my advice if you’re looking to travel to Scotland is get a card, don’t try to use this app or you may find you bank balance unavailable while on holiday. I’ve given two stars because when we finally found a charger that the app did work with (In Tobermory) it worked okay and got us going. They should make it clear that the app doesn’t work with a lot of their chargers, the support staff seem well aware of this.

The Charge place Scotland service and app are a miserable failure with no hope for improvement. The app requires logging in again every single time it's opened. It still shows that I have an active charging session... from FIVE months ago, preventing the ability to see or manage my current charging session. The map is basically useless because it shows broken chargers as available, meaning that you drive to a charging station showing multiple available chargers only to find that there are NONE. So you have to drive to the next nearest station and hope that doesn't happen. This on top of the fact that (in Edinburgh at least) there are entire stations, like Comely Bank, where every single charger has been dead for over a month - nothing on the screen, and of course they show up as available on the map. That this company seems to have a monopoly on EV charging and charges double the going rates is a scam. I wonder which MSP is getting the kickbacks?

This app charges your account £35-40 to plug your car in which they refund after a few days. At no point does it inform you of this until after the apple pay payment has been taken. This is not a hold like you get at car rental companies, it’s a full payment. I found this out after I had tried to start a charger several times, thinking the £40 hold was just that, a £40 hold, only to find they had taken £160 out of my account! Later on the phone to the company the staff admitted to me some chargers are not capable of being used over the app yet they take the payment anyway. I’m now considering my options, will be putting in a complaint but I feel this needs to be taken up by trading standards. The Scottish government should be ashamed of themselves for selling this infrastructure to a private company that behaves in this way.