£1200 credit on my n power account

unhappybillpayer · 21 April 2014 at 11:16AM

Hi I've just joined MSE forums and I'm hoping someone may be able to help me with a query , two years ago I changed to npower for both gas and electricity and the calculated usage for my home was way off the mark, consequently I owed them £800 after the first winter with them, my monthly direct debit went up (and we had the house insulated)
I have recently checked my account ballance and it is £1200 pounds in credit, ok that's all background and this is the query,
Can I request this money back? I have called them three times and the 1st time was told the computers Wernt working so the matter would need to be sent to back office, the 2nd time I was told they needed 28 days to work out the issue and the 3rd time that my bill was due and I hadn't had one since last June.
I have provided up to date meter readings, and on my account with them my last bill was in January, I have compared the reading from January to the ones just taken and when I work it out I have used £500 at the very most .
Consider ing it's coming into summer and I've managed to put away £1200 over the winter I think it is reasonable to ask for £700 to be returned especially since there policy states anything over £60 will be returned and that they will return if requested within 10 days.

Sorry if I'm ranting, does anyone know if I can demand this money? I think I'm going to change anyway as I feel there going to try to rip me off somehow.

Kind regards

Cardew · 21 April 2014 at 11:33AM

Welcome to the forum.

The only time an accurate balance figure can be calculated is when there is a bill based on actual meter readings, and the bill reflects your monthly payments.

The review date is normally in Spring. So if your calculations are correct you should get both a £700 refund and your monthly DD payment reduced in line with the estimated consumption for the year ahead.

On the other hand you are with Npower who, if the tales on MSE are correct, are having a torrid time in their accounts department!!

IggyB · 23 April 2014 at 3:55PM

Don't expect to get anything that vaguely resembles customer service from RWE NPower. Took them 10 weeks just to transfer my supply.....then it got worse.

As previous poster says their billing systems are still in absolute chaos. As a result their customer service staff are just completely overun and struggle to get anything sorted out.

I waited over 12 months for my online account to be set up and activated. Never happened.

Then complaints get ignored and aren't properly logged by customer services. I suspect that's how they tried to hide the awful customer service statistics when they were going off the rails.

When a complaint is finally logged and escalated to the "Executive Complaints" team they still struggle.... eventually give up and tell you after 8 weeks that you can now complain to the Energy Ombudsman as they can't sort the problem out.

Then even the Energy Ombusdman (EO) tells you they are overun and have an extra 4-6 week delay over and above their usual 6-8 weeks. Probably struggling to cope with the volume of RWE NPower complaints..... still waiting for the EO to get their act together after 16 weeks of waiting so don't hold your breath and expect them to help anytime soon.

I do wonder if German consumers get similar levels of service from RWE back in RWE's homeland. I suspect not. Perhaps if forums etc got filled with bad press about RWE the owners might decide enough is enough and pull their UK subsiduary into line. Bad PR is the last thing an overpaid faceless bunch of corporate executives want.

Perhaps I now need a twitter account to complain and escalate things in the twittersphere...

Oh and the one time that they can miraculously get their act together and get in touch is...surprise, surprise...to advise of mid term price rises to their online tariffs just two weeks before they announce an 8% profit rise for the first 9 months of the year....makes you want to cry. :mad:.

Sorry this is all negative but that's the deal with RWE NPower based on my relatively short 17 month experience to date.

I will never ever touch RWE NPower or their services again, even if they come out cheaper on the comparison sites. I'd rather pay a bit more as in the long run prices aren't usually that dissimilar. Once bitten......

nPower · 28 April 2014 at 10:53AM

unhappybillpayer wrote: »

Hi I've just joined MSE forums and I'm hoping someone may be able to help me with a query , two years ago I changed to npower for both gas and electricity and the calculated usage for my home was way off the mark, consequently I owed them £800 after the first winter with them, my monthly direct debit went up (and we had the house insulated)
I have recently checked my account ballance and it is £1200 pounds in credit, ok that's all background and this is the query,
Can I request this money back? I have called them three times and the 1st time was told the computers Wernt working so the matter would need to be sent to back office, the 2nd time I was told they needed 28 days to work out the issue and the 3rd time that my bill was due and I hadn't had one since last June.
I have provided up to date meter readings, and on my account with them my last bill was in January, I have compared the reading from January to the ones just taken and when I work it out I have used £500 at the very most .
Consider ing it's coming into summer and I've managed to put away £1200 over the winter I think it is reasonable to ask for £700 to be returned especially since there policy states anything over £60 will be returned and that they will return if requested within 10 days.

Sorry if I'm ranting, does anyone know if I can demand this money? I think I'm going to change anyway as I feel there going to try to rip me off somehow.

Kind regards

Hi unhappybillpayer,

Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this for you. Can you drop me an email using the address from my profile and I'll take a closer look into your account to see what we can do about a refund.

Thanks

Leigh

duffs54 · 22 May 2014 at 8:01AM

I was in a similar situation, more history involved, but my on,line account showed £400 credit, asked for it back only to be told we owe them £1800. This is through miss billing, selling and incorrect DD and not taking DD, in hands of Ombudsman, who cam to solution, all agreed on it, meant to be in place within 28 days that was about 16th March, we are getting threatening letters, bailiff letters and no solution from Npower, now the ombudsman seems to be not responding to my emails.

The whole thing stinks. so be careful what you wish for unhappybill payer.

We switched in 2010, mistake found July 2012 after several promises, lies and ignoring my contacts, Ombudsman involved Jan 2014, and this is as far as we have got.

Robwiz · 22 May 2014 at 8:20AM

I suggest that anyone who has an issue with npower writes to their MP, who will make representations on their behalf to the minister responsible (Ed Davey). If there is sufficient evidence of a problem then the Government will have to take action. The energy companies are required to operate within a legal framework and there is strong evidence that npower is not complying and should face sanctions.

matelodave · 22 May 2014 at 12:53PM

I just can't understand how people get into ginormous arrears or overpayments and then blame it all on the energy companies.
It's easy check your meters, check your bills and check your direct debits then you can determine if something is amiss and get it sorted out before it becomes a big problem.
If you can't be bothered and it all go wrong then you are equally to blame if not more so.
It's your money so you should take charge of it,not just trust to luck or someone else to look after it

duffs54 · 22 May 2014 at 5:34PM

matelodave wrote: »

I just can't understand how people get into ginormous arrears or overpayments and then blame it all on the energy companies.
It's easy check your meters, check your bills and check your direct debits then you can determine if something is amiss and get it sorted out before it becomes a big problem.
If you can't be bothered and it all go wrong then you are equally to blame if not more so.
It's your money so you should take charge of it,not just trust to luck or someone else to look after it

Firstly, you do not know the whole story, I was mis-sold on the door told my payments would be less than they should be so for 3yrs they were sending bills telling us we were in credit all the time there is no way in the world I could work out if the amounts were right or not. Sorry but I do not understand energy bills like a lot of people. Then over 1yr they missed 5 payments, the DD was there, my bank conformed that they had tried to take the money but npower had set them up incorrectly.. We tried to sort this out. Then they lied and tried to wriggle out of sorting it out, which is nothing to do with me, their systems were being changed etc, this was over the next 2 years. I kept being given an executive complaints team, who never ever contacted me or tried to help.

Thankfully the ombudsman looked at all the info, that I had documented and bought them to task, which they should of sorted within 28days and they haven't.

But today I have just heard from the Ombudsman,
:
Thank you for your email.
I understand your ongoing frustration in this matter.
I have discussed the case with npower today. It has confirmed that due to the technical fault now being resolved a large amount of accounts are being sent back for back billing, this has resulted in a 6 to 8 week delay in apply the Code. When I spoke to the company today it confirmed your case was 26th in the queue. However, after escalating this to a Manager, it has been agreed the account will be reviewed in the next two days and a letter sent by the end of next week.
I have diarised to contact Gary at npower on 30 May 2014 to confirm a letter has been issued.

I do appreciate your patience in this matter and I am hopeful that npower will issue the agreed letter on 30 May 2014:T

So not all my fault is it!

StringerT · 15 July 2014 at 10:05AM

I'm in a similar situation. I've been paying DD of £206 for about 16 months with no actual bills coming off my account (I was about £2550 in credit at one point!), I've sent regular meter readings and phoned voicing my concerns that I'd be hit with a large bill but was reassured my payments were sufficient.

Last Friday a payment of £528 was taken off (which I managed to get an indemnity). I've now been told I'm in arrears of almost £500 and my DD will now be £294 a month! I was really hoping to leave nPower but think I might be stuck for a while longer. I thought £206 was an expensive bill but £294 is a stinker.

Can anyone advise? I was thinking of paying off the arrears on a credit card just so I can get away from them as they are clearly useless.

PS Annoying thing is I used the MSE Energy tracker tool which put me onto nPower!

lovinituk · 15 July 2014 at 2:18PM

Another similar situation here. Account showing massively in credit and npower can't process the final bill despite final readings being given some months ago. I am currently on my 3rd call to them and being given promises for the 3rd time that it will be sorted but I'm really not holding my breath.

What a ridiculous shambles. This company is as bad as British Telecom which is saying something!

lovinituk · 15 July 2014 at 2:37PM

OK, so this time I was bounced around a couple of different departments and ended up speaking to someone in Complaints. Apparently accounts closed at the end of last year are mostly the ones with problems. I have now had my issue raised as a complaint which will apparently pass things on to a specific team who are dealing with finalising these accounts. Hopefully this will sort it out for good.

£1200 credit on my n power account

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