NPower expect me to foot the bill for their incompetentcy! HELP please!

Boppy_2

Got up this morning to a nice letter from NPower informing me I owed them £994.02, FINAL reminder too, first I've heard plus not to mention the fact I have had a prepayment meter ever since I moved in to this property nearly 4 years ago :rotfl:

Bit of background information if anyone could help please - I was with British Gas from October 2005 to 6th October 2006 when I moved to NPower, NPower never sent me a key to use for their electric and when I asked them why they told me the new information was on my old key (the BG one) so obviously I was still getting electric so I thought they were right, what did I know :rolleyes: Anyway for some reason I had to phone them, I can't even remember when or what for but it turns out they'd not been getting the payments (:mad: ) BG had and they would get the payments I had made from them and send me a NPower key, all fine and dandy.

Had problems with NPower and our gas supply and their shoddy customer service so moved back to British Gas 24th October 2008, got final statements, money back from gas supply, thought nothing more of it until today.

Bill for £994.02 for electric used, phoned up and spoke to a snooty woman with an attitude (don't think she realised at 1st she was speaking to a heavily pregnant woman who barely sleeps so my attitude could be bigger but I remained polite at first!) I explained everything, she said there was a dispute, didn't explain further and then put me on hold :rolleyes: She came back and explained that from the time they took over October 2006 to October 2008 when I left them they had never received any of my payments so I politely said 'and its taken you 2 and a half years to realise that?' I got the snooty reply that they don't look into accounts UNTIL you move suppliers or move house :eek: She then informed me they had found ( ) £702 and made it sound like I should be grateful but the outstanding £292.02 would need to be paid, I told her I had obviously paid it because I am on a prepayment meter, she said she could see that but did I have any receipts because until they could find the money I am still liable, I told her politely I would love to see it stand up in court as far as I was aware I have paid for the energy I have used and it's not my fault their incompetentcy have led to them not receiving my payments, I mean how am I as a customer with an electric supply supposed to know they aren't receiving payments???

The letter states if I don't pay (the £994.02) within 10 days it will be passed to a debt collector, I have told them not to bother because I don't owe them to money, she said she can't guarantee they won't :mad: she said it is saying on system though that it is in dispute so I shouldn't hear anymore about it until it's sorted but then she said someone would contact me within 2-3 days regarding the matter :rotfl: Bravo for NPower :T

Anyway is there anything I can actually do? They have got more chance of successfully designing a chocolate teapot than me paying them AGAIN, obviously if I do happen to find any receipts I will gladly pass them on but the chances are slim to none :rolleyes:

Thanks in advance.

Joyful

Check with both companies their opening and closing reads. Also check with British Gas what time they had payments from you when they did not supply and how much they returned to Npower. If all your payments have been recovered it may be that you were being charged at British Gas prices as you were till using a BG key. This may mean if NP tariff was higher there would be a shortfall.

You can also get BG to check (I work for them) what reads were sent through from your key for start and end dates to make sure these were used when you changed supply.

spiro

It is also possible that some of the money is being held by the PPMIP (organisation that transmits data from outlet to supplier) because they dont know who the supplier is because NPower never told them.

Boppy_2

Many thanks for the replies, is this something I need to do or can they do it? I'm pretty annoyed that they have lost the money yet its up to me to find it, as you can understand being heavily pregnant I have better things to do with my time than help incompetant energy suppliers out!

spiro

There is not much you can do except find any receipts you have when you purchased credit. It may sound like a pain in the a**e but you really need to keep hold of them until you get a statment so you can check all payments have been received by the supplier in much the same way as checking your credit card bill.