Powergen, can you really trust them?

june2rose

Powergen keep popping up in the media regarding extravegent claims for money due for gas and electricity that havn't been used. Thats the situation my mother has found herself in for a while now. Powergen supply electricity to my mothers home, she was supplied useing ecconomy 10 arranged by the council which after consultation with one of their rep's was changed to ecconomy 7 so as to save her money.( there is no gas supply in the village ). Living in a small 2 bedroomed bungalow on her own, storage heaters the main source of heating, shower installed for bathing etc, energy efficent, always trying to reduce the bills. A new meter was installed in dec 2004 and the direct debit was reduced and set to a lower ammount due to constantly being in credit, by the 24 November 2005 the closing balance owing for the year was £626.65. Throughout the year i've spent time on the phone questioning the bills and more inportantly the readings quoted and their validity iv'e given daily readings to give a consumption guide for them, appointments being made for meter readings to be taken and nothing has been rectified while my mother keeps worrying about how shes going to pay this bill. The main problem as i see it is that the day readings are being credited for the night rate and vice versa which has been confirmed but no action taken so far to resolve this problem. Not being a rocket scientist and without a degree in pure maths iv'e found problems working out how they structure the bills we end up with and it seems the person on the other end of the phone doesn't understand either, they just seem apt at passing the buck saying someone else will get in contact. After all the moaning and groaning they finally came up with a list of figures (non the wiser) saying that instead of owing £626.65 she now owes £6.46, statement date 10 Jan 2006, WOW! Along comes the latest statement dated 23 Feb 2006 with a new bill for £237.00 minus a £39 standing order payment and a £40 gesture of goodwill for all the inconvenience caused, i'm not settling for £40. So with charges raised since 10 Jan 2006 my mothers raised a bill of £309.54, pretty good a for a 71 yr old pentioner living on her own? A meter reading was taken by a man representing either Siemens or Accuread that Powergen use to obtain their meter readings, Powergen assure me that no appointment was made for a reading to be taken on the date in question and they have no record as such hence the estimated bill once again as they are only required by law to read our meters once a year, and non responsive to the fact that he arrived at 6 o'colock in the evening and just coincidence the bill was raised on the same date. I'm suspicious of Powergen and their bills as i was supplied by them myself up till 1999 and on leaving the matrimonial home found myself with a massive bill for gas and electricity outstanding, it took me the best part of 6 months and countless phone calls, charges from my bank for old statements, cash payments i had to write off for lack of proof before aggreeing on a final payment to close the account. My meters situated indoors were read every quarter because i let the chap in personally but yet again no record of the readings were on file so there was no evidence to back up my claim that they were read. I like thousands of others i assume just pay the bill when it comes through the letter box without ever checking if its based on "A" or "E" readings because we saw the guy read the meter prior to the bill. What are they playing at because it seems they do what they want regardless. According to the nice lady who really wanted to get this sorted for my mother so she says, commented to her that there was a massive backlog of enquiries concerning discrepancies with payments and she wanted to clear up hers, watchdog and others have gone on record about this annomoly.
Since this problem began ive looked over the previous bills for 2004 which my mother kept whilst being supplied using ecconomy 10 and there is little difference, just more discrepencies with meter readings and the ammounts being paid. This has yet to be addressed by me as it would be nice to get last years sorted befor chasing up the previous years.
As for Energy watch the saviour we should reach for, well all the help i received from them was a letter to Powergen asking them to react to my enquiry in x ammount of days. The chap was more concerned with telling me what he couldnt do than what he was going to do and found it hard to listen to what help i was asking him for, he must have been late for his coffee break.
Sorry if iv'e gone on a bit but i'm naffed off with Powergen and i would really be gratefull for any information on what i should do next to get this sorted out because all attempts so far haven't worked. The problem isn't going away its just getting worse. Help please?

bernice_2

ive just switched to powergen and now am getting concerned that i have not made the right chice.
I used the comparision site and it said that they would give me the biggist saving, but now after reading all the threads im not so sure.
I have checked my bank account and they have already taken my monthly payments but the switch has not been completed. What do i do cos i am paying for them and seeboard(whom i have switched from),
bernice

Annando

Bernice, you do have a 14 days cooling off period in which you can cancel your new contract if you so wish. You could also contact Powergen about the DD and ask them to refund the money, or only start collecting once your switch is completed.

June2Rose, I understand your frustration as I have been in your position in the past. The different letters next to your readings stand for:
A - Actual (When the man comes around and reads the meter)
E - Estimated (When Powergen decides how much they think you must have used - they usually OVER estimate)
C - Customer (When the customer provides their own reading).

I am surprised that energywatch weren't of much help. I had some trouble with Powergen before and energywatch were really brilliant in helping me. I do agree with you that their billing / calculation method seems obscure and unecessarily over -complicated.

You could write a new (Very angry) letter to Powergen with a copy to Energywatch, in both cases demanding a reply and threatening Powergen with Watchdog and the National Press, at a time of price rises I am sure they don't want yet more bad publicity! Emphasize as much as possible your mother's situation, age etc and how stressful all this is for her.

Best of luck, I hope you are successful!

MrT_5

It is quite a long posting and I can't really say anything about your personal circumstances but my brother moved into a flat last year. The previous tenant was with Powergen but my brother switched before he moved in.

Of course he received a bill from Powergen some time after he moved in. This bill was for over two hundred pounds and that was for about a months worth of gas. (pretty pricey don't you think?) Quite rightly he contacted them and as we all know it is difficult to contact a human being who doesn't say "you have reached the wrong department, I will transfer you", only to be cut off or get the run around. Eventually he spoke to a human being who agreed it was nothing to do with him and they said it would be cancelled. Fantastic! Well the red bills arrived and arrived so he went to CAB for advice. CAB contacted Powergen and eventually spoke to the all powerful being at PG (abbreviation for Powergen as I am fed up of typing it). PG say "we understand the problem and will issue a nil bill. Fan bloody tastic! Nil bill arrives, Fan dabbie dozie! Some time later a letter arrives from the bailiffs. Pay up or we are coming to beat you up and get our money which is now nearer six hundred quid with charges. They never actually said they would beat him up but have you seen those bailiffs on the tele? Not exactly recruited for their personality are they?

Brother contacts bailiffs and says "I have a nil bill and written proof from the CAB that PG accepted it wasn't my debt and have written it off. NO say the legalised thugs aka bailiffs. Pay up etc. See you in court says my brother and I will want costs and compensation! Okay say the thugs, send us proof and we will look into it. Brother then comes to me because I can type and sometimes stick a letter together. I copy all his documents, type a covering letter saying see you in court and send it recorded delivery. I also email PG because I am a customer of theirs and said if you don't call the dogs off you will lose me. I'm not sure if it had an effect but brother gets a phone call from PG to say "we have called dogs off, can we come to some arrangement?" Jeeze, don't they ever give up? NO, NO a thousand times no says my brother, see you in court! Okay, I will talk to a supervisor says PG man. Okay the debt is cancelled and you are in the clear. That is the situation at the moment but we are not convinced it is the end. PG I understand have just put their prices up by a quarter. Greed in my opinion and I will be leaving them. Hope I don't get the same problems as my brother though.

RoCas

Hi,

What a pain Powergen are! We transferred to them last year and the messed up every at stage beyond belief. In the end we gave up and went back to British Gas. Before we left them, however, I managed to find one guy at Powergen who knew what he was talking about and had the authority to sort his colleagues' messes out. Try calling Guy Legg on 0115 906 2802.

Good luck!

dav_blackpool

Good luck anybody wishing to switch to Powergen...

I'm not too sure about how the whole system works, but when we moved into our current house 3 years ago, the house was already supplied with British Gas gas and electric. We changed over to Powergen straight away, and lo-and behold they screwed everything up.

We didn't know this until the Powergen bills came through, we paid them as normal thinking everything was all ok... however, we received a debt collection letter for nearly £900 from a company acting on behalf of British Gas... it seemed that BG and Powergen thought they were supplying service.

It was all very confusing, and in the end we just switched back to BG, they took the money as they were apparently the wholesale provider or something and its all sorted now! phew!

David

mikeyd

I've been having problems with Powergen. I swtiched to their Dual Fuel Energy Online service a few years ago. Back in December they transfered my gas supply to someone else without my permission (Apparently someone in my block of flats was switching and a mistake was made with the Meter point reference number, resulting in my supply getting transferred). I contacted them in the middle of January and they said there was a mistake and they would sort it out within two weeks. It still hasnt been sorted out yet despite numerous phone calls to them, and the whole time I havent been able to supply my gas meter readings online. I haven't received any bills (or any letters) from whoever my supply was transferred to, so I don't know what has happened with it.

Does anyone know what Powergen's Dual Fuel Discount is, as i will have missed out on that in the last few months as well?

Their service is an absolute joke. It takes ages to get through on the telephone, and when you do get through nothing gets done. You would think that they would actually want to sort it out quickly, if a customer actually wants to stay with them and not transfer their supplier elsewhere.

Annando

Hi Mikeyd,
The dual fuel online discount, according to the email they sent me in August 2005, is £50 for the whole year, £12.50 per quarter.
Haven't received any emails about prices increases or discount changes, so suppose those amounts are still valid.

Their CS is despicable, the only way I got any compensation from them was going through energywatch, also thank God I had kept all the letters they had sent me, they didn't even know what tariffs they had put me on at the beginning! I really miss Amerada, they were cheap, CS was good and their bills were easy to understand!

in-need_of_money

oh no
have just switched from n power to powergen through this web site link to save money. I hope I don't get awful service. I'll just switch back if that's the case!!

aloiseb

This all sounds so familiar...We had a fussation with Powergen after changing to their Dual Fuel (Dual Fuel is probably more like it!) and ended up paying £95 per month as our direct debit. We're now in credit I think but for how long, with the price rises coming, I don't know.

However, when I rang NPower (for my free cinema ticket - thanks whoever foudn that one!) they todl me that i would be paying more with them.......

is this the only recorded case of honesty from one of these suppliers??

alex69

I've had nightmares with Powergen electricity after leaving them 3 years ago. Every 3 months I'd get a bill for 3-400 pounds while they were not supplying elecrtricity to the house. Phone calls letters, thread of bailiffs everytime. Eventually they'd desist only to start again after 3 months.

I've threatened to call the police for harassment and to sue them for lost business caused by their incompentent (fraudolent?) billing department. It's now 6 months they dont' send a red bill. We'll see.

Stay away like the plague. This is a company the government should come down and close straightaway. It also shows how unfair it is that large companies like these have access to our credit ratings, can call bailiffs etc.

Just stay away from them