Powergen - an odd situation

taxiphil

Yet another Powergen thread I'm afraid! This one's quite an intriguing situation...

I switched to Powergen about 18 months ago. I'm one of those people who has no understanding whatsoever of gas/elec billing so I've never had any idea what I was paying - I just went with Powergen because of a special sign-up offer (Currys vouchers).

Powergen have always taken about £22 a month from my account by direct debit and I never questioned this - I have a small economical house and thought this payment was to cover my gas and elec. I never received paper bills as I was on an online tariff and I had never previously bothered to go on the Powergen website to check my account.

After discovering this marvellous forum, and reading the recent posts about Powergen ripping off their existing customers, I decided to log on to the Powergen website for the first time ever to check my account.

The electricity section of my account confirmed the amounts they'd been taking from my bank account.

But to my amazement the gas section says "IN PROGRESS... WE'RE SETTING UP YOUR ACCOUNT FOR YOU".

I e-mailed Powergen and got the following reply today:

I am sorry for the delay in setting up your gas account. We have been supplying you since November 2004, however, due to system issues your account was not set up properly. I am updating your account details so that it no longer shows as 'pending' this will take up to four weeks.

Due to the fact that we have been unable to bill your gas we will ask you for an opening meter reading which we will use to bill you. You will not be charged for any gas you have used up until this date.

Let me get this straight - are they saying they're not going to charge me for the gas I've used between November 2004 and now?

I'm absolutely lost for words at the fact Powergen never noticed they weren't charging me anything for gas - for 18 months! It seems the setting up of my account just got "stuck" and then nothing happened! How on earth could their system allow this to happen?

Yes, I could have gone online to check this much sooner, but to be honest I could never be bothered. There was no conspiracy on my part to try and get free gas. I'd given Powergen my bank account details, let them take whatever amount they saw fit by direct debit, and thought this was as far as my obligations went.

Geoffo_M

Wow Phil, that's quite a story. You must be left with a mighty credit balance! It's surprising this has been in limbo since 2004 and they haven't contacted you by e-mail. If they are indeed saying that they aren't going to charge you for Gas for the last 18 months, I'd be inclined to rub my hands and say "Thank you very much".

I've a gut feeling though that things might catch up with you. Not too sure Powergen are too super-efficient if you've read the other threads.

Good luck mate!

Geoff

Cardew

It seems you will be getting free gas - if you hadn't emailed them you might have got it for even longer!

I assume they have lost the meter reading when you changed suppliers.

oldwiring

I know from the posts in this sub forum that PG appear to be chaotic organisation and that they deserve all they get, or in this case don't get. I know the aim of all here is to save money.

However I would ask, if there is not, in similar hypothetical circumstances to this one, a moral dimension. Suppose I have retained the finla bill of my previous supplier does morality put pressure on me to advise the supplier of this, even though such an action would be to my disadvantage? Intersting?

jxtreme

you are absolutley correct we cant charge you for the gas that you had previously used even if you did give the final meter reading from your old supplier we still wouldnt charge you for it as this was an error on pgens part, and the systems we use would be unable to rebill you for such a long period of time so if we put in your old reading then the system would throw your account into an unbillable status

funnily enough this is not the only case i have heard of in my time at powergen i also dealt with the exact same issue the other week just not on the online tarriff

scope

oldwiring wrote:

However I would ask, if there is not, in similar hypothetical circumstances to this one, a moral dimension. Suppose I have retained the finla bill of my previous supplier does morality put pressure on me to advise the supplier of this, even though such an action would be to my disadvantage? Intersting?

Dude, they are offering him free gas for 18 months, I think he should take it and run. Seriously, if it happened to me I would not go out of my way to give them anything, even if I had the reading.. Its their cockup.

Ken68

Hi Taxi....I'm with Oldwiring on this, a moral dimension to it.
Tho if Powergen has said it's OK, it's OK.
You could give some of the savings to charity.

taxiphil

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. Regarding the moral dimension mentioned by oldwiring and Ken68, I can see where you're coming from, but I can only reiterate that I did nothing wrong and wasn't even aware I'd been getting free gas until all this came to light last week.

When I switched to Powergen back in 2004 I gave them gas & elec meter readings (I clearly remember standing by the meters outside with my cordless telephone as the lady at Powergen explained how to take the readings). And I set up a direct debit to pay them. For 18 months I saw that Powergen were taking payments from my bank account and thought everything was fine.

Hence this is all down to a !!!! up on Powergen's part. I'm as surprised as anyone that they can write off 18 months of free gas at the click of a button (and it raises the question of whether I could have had free gas for life if I'd never mentioned anything). I can understand the frustration of other customers who feel they are subsidising this kind of thing, but please remember it's Powergen's extraordinary incompetence that you are subsidising, not the dishonesty of other customers.

oldwiring

taxiphil

Most certainly I was not getting at you. It's just that too often one can easily want to screw every other co or cuss for what one thinks is his but shows no generousity of spirit to others.