NPower pre-payment meter question ... I'm cross!

homeb

I also have problems with NPower, i got meters installed in my old house 3 years ago, again kept receiving bills and also kept phoning, i have recently moved due to my marriage breakdown and they have written to tell me that unfortunately any outstanding debt had not been added to my meters and that they " are sorry this has happened" but i am due £630.66". What can I do?

dizziblonde

If it's price increase debt - then the sad truth is, the more fuss you make about it - the more likely you are to get it written off. I used to work trying to collect these debts for another energy company and that was always the way they worked - basically looking for easy targets to get to agree to have the debts set to collect on their meter - from errors arising on their part.

I didn't last long in that job as I morally had issues with what I was being asked to do (applied to a generic pool and was allocated to that team so didn't go into it looking to be a debt collector).

If you've never denied the meter people access to your meter, or if you've got an outside meter box (so they've got no excuse) then you've got a stronger case and some of the companies are just writing off these debts while others are pushing much harder to get them collected. It's not your fault it's accrued on the account - when prices were going up 2/3 times a year and no one was going around to reset the meters to remove the correct amount of credit - the amount owing on the account fell out of whack with the amount you were feeding into the meter to build up the credit on the account to cover bills... and when these meters are being sold as "pay for your energy as you go" - that's what people assume is happening - that their tenner of credit bought them a tenner of electricity... unless you're aware there are these problems with the technology (I wasn't until I worked in prepayment) - you don't THINK to check what your meter is actually set to charge at... until you show up in a list for someone to generate a bill for you one day... I've been hit by it myself with an underset meter that I only discovered when I started that job - but my supplier at the time was one that wrote the price increase debt off and didn't persue to collect it when they changed everyone to key meters. Shame because I was really looking forward to a good scrap with them if I was honest!

If you've been calling them up to query prices going up and your meter not being reset then you've made things even stronger for your case - I'd be inclined to work my ticket with it and push to have it all written off. Like I say - I couldn't morally deal with what was essentially bullying very vulnerable people and terrifying them with the word "debt" because of something that wasn't their fault and left that horrid job very quickly.

It IS the fault of the system and the technology used at the time (especially those card token meters) - in the times before price increases three times a year the system worked OK - you paid your tenner down the shop for your tokens, you put them into the meter to let a tenner's worth of power though, while the swipe card that you'd paid with registered the tenner onto your account on the energy company systems so you built up a bank of credit on the account sufficient to cover the bill when that was generated by the system. The old-style meters needed manually resetting when prices went up - and as these increases became more and more common and visits from meter people were cut back - the system fell out of sync and your meter quite happily went on letting tenners worth of electricity through at old prices, while the computer was calculating your useage at new prices - and you no longer build up enough credit on the account to cover the bills being produced - and the account starts to drop into debt. Now meters are being swapped for key ones (which grab the new prices when you top them up with credit - basically, it's more technical than that, but I always worked token accounts) - companies are trying to reconcille these accounts with debts on them and taking different approaches - some are trying to get as much as possible set on the meter as a debt, some are trying to bill a token amount, some are writing off the debt totally. It's also a slight misconception on the part of many people about how prepayment energy accounts work - people assume they're like Pay As You Go mobiles and they're not.

It is purely and simply trying to reclaim as much as they can from easier targets because of a failure of the system installed at the time. Like I say - I used to have to work these accounts day in, day out and that's all that it boils down to. I'd just carry on making a fuss and they're more than likely to back down.

robredz

Nice explanation dizziblonde, but there are also issues with key meters and recalibrating payment amounts ongoing now I believe.

Cardew

Agreed nice explanation dizziblonde. As you say, many people think that you are paying in full for your energy.

Indeed many of the companies write off any debt accrued in this fashion.

However if the debt was indeed £1,200 which the OP doesn't dispute,(she kept getting bills) and apparently knew it was building up, to write of £1,130 is a pretty good deal.

P.S.
It is also pertinent to point out that on some occasions electricty prices have fallen and a credit balance has built up.

DVardysShadow

KimYeovil wrote: »

Rubbish

Rubbish

Rubbish

Wow, at last, something that is not rubbish.

Rubbish. Those on prepayment meters complain enough about paying the extra cost of their arrangements. You want them to pay even higher prices. Do you really think they should be charged a service fee of £40 or £50 every time the prices change?

The thing that really sticks in my mind is that when asked to put it in black and white they suddenly start getting shifty. When they put it in black and white is soon enough to start calling rubbish.

homeb

Thanks for advice and i will keep you updated with how things progress. Should i just send them a letter or email disputing this?

sweetstudent

Would also like to add that the £70 capped debt is for a Token Meter, it would not apply to a smartcard or Key/Talexus Key meter!

Fire_Fox

homeb wrote: »

Thanks for advice and i will keep you updated with how things progress. Should i just send them a letter or email disputing this?

In writing via recorded delivery to the complaints department.

homeb

thanks for advice, all greatly welcomed as i havent got a clue where to start with this crowd.

mimo1

Npower are rotten to the core. I advise people to avoid them like the plague.

I joined them when Greenpeace touted their green energy tariff. Eventually I got fed up with their rudeness- the final straw was when I went on holiday for two weeks, and when I returned I found a bill and a separate letter from their debt collection department threatening to send bailiffs round to my flat, just because I hadn't paid the bill yet!

So I paid the bill, and left for Ecotricity, telling Npower why I was fed up with them. But once I'd left, they got far worse.
My account was transferred to Ecotricity, but 6 months later I got a huge bill from Npower, for several hundred pounds, acting as if they were still my supplier! It took me a month to sort that out with help from Ecotricity.

Then, Npower sales department started ringing my home phone at least once a week, and cold calling on an almost weekly basis, trying to get me to go back to Npower. I wrote a letter to complain of this harrassment, and it stopped briefly.

Then they started again when their sales team blitzed my neighbourhood with nuisance cold callers. I live in a gated development, and they would trick people into letting them into the gates. Their teenage staff would say "Hi it's gas and electricity here to read the meters", disguising the fact that they were from Npower whenever able, then come in and go round knocking on every door with their sales pitch. The whole point of a gated development is to keep cold callers out, so this was an abuse of power.

I got into the habit of asking which company they were from, and they would always say really quickly in a sing-song voice "Npowergasandelectricity" so you couldn't even here the word Npower. I often have to say "Who?" a few times until I can understand that they're Npower. It's a tad deceitful. I then tell them that I'm not with Npower any more and usually have to turn the intercom off when they start reeling off their sales pitch.

I told Ecotricity about it, and they told me that they have heard a lot of similar stuff about Npower. They said that Npower even come around and read other people's meters, people who aren't even their customers! Ecotricity have been great and match the prices of the other suppliers, without the harrassment and phoney bills. I strongly recommend Npower customers to switch to them.

It's saturday morning, a year on from when I left Npower. They woke me up this morning by buzzing me for entry. Npower are indeed the worst energy supplier. I am a young man, and I fear for how their amoral sales team must be ripping off old people as we speak. My father, who lives the other side of the country from me, has had problems with them overbilling and weaving their inexplicable webs of deceipt already.