Has anyone else been given a debt from npower???

gemmagemma09

I was previously with e.on then switched to npower maybe two years ago i have a prepayment meter which was installed before i moved in. Now two days ago i recieved a strange letter from npower telling me they had important information about my meter. They informed me they are now going to collect £5.00 every week from my meter to pay an outstanding balance amount of £120.00. How can i have a debt to them when i have a prepayment meter? So i called them up to ask about it and they informed me that they had made a mistake with all their meters which had recently been corrected. Apparently they had been undercharging everyone for however long and they were now collecting it at the rate of £5.00 each week. I told the very polite lady on the phone that well i thought for the last two years i was over paying seeing as i live in a two bed flat and use only one storage heater to heat it, and currently paying between £20- £30 a week. she told me she understood my fustration but it had happened to everybody and that Ofcom had told them that is the amount to charge me (and persuming everyone else too). I told her i thought this was ridiculous considering it was their mistake with the meters and that i was paying more than enough per week anyway. She told me "well npower is a buisness and there was pretty much nothing i could do" has this happened to anyone else then???

Premier_2

First of all, inform nPower that you want in writing a breakdown of how the alleged debt is made up.

£120.00 seems like a strange round number for any debt caused by error to me.

I don't know the tariff, but you pay per unit and possibly have a standing charge. If these are not recalibrated promptly when a price rise occurs, then you could accrue a debt.

However it's been ages since any price rise, and nPower probably reduced prices earlier this year when most other suppliers did (but they might not have - you need to check)

Finally, it's nPower declared policy to not pursue recovery of more than £70 when they fail to recalibrate promptly.


Edit: oh and tell them you want a copy of the communication from Ofcom ordering nPower to put all their PPM customers in debt to the sum of £120 :rolleyes:

Edit 2: Why don't you just switch supplier? A debt is not a debt until at least 28 days after it has been formally demanded, so they can't stop you from switching if you are quick.

mattcanary

I agree with the above Premier, except:

Won't Npower have already reset the keymeter so it is collecting the "debt" at £$5.00 per week? So if gemma changed supplier, wouldn;t she still be paying the debt back through the meter. I'm assuming Gemma has a keymeter and not a cardmeter as most old cardmeters have been changed over by now?

This does seem very strange behaviour from NPower. Surely they shouldn;t be allowed to arbitrarily declare that someone owes them moeny when they are paying by a keymeter anyway?

buzzmaster

gemmagemma09 wrote: »

I was previously with e.on then switched to npower maybe two years ago i have a prepayment meter which was installed before i moved in. Now two days ago i recieved a strange letter from npower telling me they had important information about my meter. They informed me they are now going to collect £5.00 every week from my meter to pay an outstanding balance amount of £120.00. How can i have a debt to them when i have a prepayment meter? So i called them up to ask about it and they informed me that they had made a mistake with all their meters which had recently been corrected. Apparently they had been undercharging everyone for however long and they were now collecting it at the rate of £5.00 each week. I told the very polite lady on the phone that well i thought for the last two years i was over paying seeing as i live in a two bed flat and use only one storage heater to heat it, and currently paying between £20- £30 a week. she told me she understood my fustration but it had happened to everybody and that Ofcom had told them that is the amount to charge me (and persuming everyone else too). I told her i thought this was ridiculous considering it was their mistake with the meters and that i was paying more than enough per week anyway. She told me "well npower is a buisness and there was pretty much nothing i could do" has this happened to anyone else then???

I had exactly same problem about 12months ago and i rang Npower and told them it was down to them to recalibrate the meter not me and they had not done this in over 5yrs even though been to my property numerous times in between only came to light when they installed new prepayment meter and i have never had debt with them as council house so meter in when i moved years ago so better for me rather than quarter bill, needless to say i stuck to my guns and they wiped the debt off end of day the meter is their property and therefore only THEY can amend it

Premier_2

mattcanary wrote: »

I agree with the above Premier, except:

Won't Npower have already reset the keymeter so it is collecting the "debt" at £$5.00 per week? So if gemma changed supplier, wouldn;t she still be paying the debt back through the meter. I'm assuming Gemma has a keymeter and not a cardmeter as most old cardmeters have been changed over by now?...

When you change supplier, you should be sent a new card or key.

This will reset the meter for things like different unit charges.
It should also remove the "debt" as the customer won't owe the new supplier anything.

stephga23

Hi,

The £120 you have been charged will more than likely be £70 token meter recalbration debt and £50 from the intital credit the engineer left on your key meter at the time it was installed.

This is me taking the assumption that you had an old 2 rate token meter and now have a 2 rate key meter.

Hope this helps

gemmagemma09

Although within 2 weeks of my phone call they sent me a letter lowering the amount to £70, i feel i should pay nothing.

Premier_2

Oh well, you've lost the opportunity to switch supplier now.

See you after Christmas with post#3?

:cool: