NPower are the most dishonest utility

NotNpower_2

NPower Gas and Electricity Dual Fuel like to portray themselves as honest, moral fair and customer caring in their advertising but when Npower made a serious mistake and took my gas supply from another supplier without my permission, resulting in huge financial implications, I soon found out that NPower complaints dpt are up there with the worst of the soulless energy corporations as they have sought to cover up mistakes and wriggle out of promises in order to avoid taking on the financial responsibility to fix their mistake in a fair way. They have chosen to pass much of cost onto a helpless consumer, in this case me.

Npower know that most consumers don’t have the time, energy or money to pursue them in the courts so to some extent they can bully us into accepting their terms with impunity. Having gone through the painful process of escalating my complaint through their cold faceless and non aptly named customer care department, I feel my only recourse is to expose NPower online and warn other consumers to beware.

So this is what happened:

I originally subscribed to EDF Energy for my dual fuel needs about a couple of years ago.

However just over a year ago I started receiving mail to my address from NPower. However it was not in my name, it was addressed to a Mr A Dye so initially I did not open them assuming they were for a previous tenant.

After a several months of receiving these letters and not receiving any from EDF I contacted EDF to find out why I had not been receiving any bills. They did not recognise my details and claimed I was not a customer.

Shocked, I decided to open one of the Npower letters to find out to my distress that it was a final notice bill threatening to send the bailiffs around to break into my premises to cut me off.

Naturally I called NPower’s customer care line and complained. After about an hour of waiting on the phone for them to find out what had happened, I was told that the problem had been solved. I was in effect the victim of an erroneous transfer. In fact there has never been MR A Dye living at my property. I was told that this would be resolved that day and that my supply would be restored immediately to EDF. I was also told that since there had been a significant accumulation of expense accumulated on the bill during the period of the erroneous transfer, that this expense would be entirely paid for by NPower, in acknowledgement of their mistake and the fact that bill had now grow too large for me to cover since I had not made gradual allowance for it as one normally would and I had changed flatmates several times during the period so it would be too late for me to claim their contribution.

I wish I could say that was the last letter from NPower to Mr A Dye at my address, and the last call I would have to make. Over the course the next year, the letters kept coming, each time with frighteningly increasing bill sizes, well into the thousands. I must have made about 10 complaint calls, each time I screamed for the issue to be resolved and requested reassurance that I would never become liable for this spiralling bill that was not even in my name. Even if I’d had the money and wanted to pay, I could not as I did not have a contract with NPower so they could not accept my payment. Each time, the NPower customer care representative assured me that the invoice value would be written off as NPower’s loss, and therefore would not be carried back to the original supplier when my account was eventually returned.

Now, over a year later, I have been told that my Electricity supply has finally been restored to EDF, however so has the enormous balance over £600 which has accumulated because of the incompetence of NPower, and in stark contrast to the assurances I was given throughout the process. I have pointed this out to NPower and they are now claiming that their representatives had been in error when they had promised to cover the bill. At one point they even tried to make out that they only promised that NPower would not invoice me, not that they wouldn’t pass the expense on to EDF who would. This is a dishonest and surreptitious attempt to wriggle out. A poultry “good will” offer of £150 was offered to shut me up on condition that I demurely knuckle down and don’t pursue my claim any further. More bullying! This is their final offer and have advised me to go to the Ombudsman or through the courts if I’m not happy with. I tried to call the person the signatory of the letter the Head of Customer Relations on many occasions but unsurprising she refused to take my calls and responsibility for her decisions, instead appointing in each case some unfortunate lackey to take her place and shield her from accountability.

I’ll try the ombudsman but honestly I don’t have the money or energy to go to court, and I suspect that NPower could defend their position from a legal perspective. But what about the moral perspective. In my most recent conversation with NPower I put one final question to them for which I have requested a reply in writing:

“NPower please can you give me a specific reason why you think it is acceptable to go back on your word and not stand by the promises your representatives made?”

So far I haven’t received a satisfactory reply

Thank you for reading.

Defeated consumer

London

Andy_WSM

NotNpower wrote: »

Thank you for reading.

Defeated consumer

London

You're only a customer if you have paid for a service.

As long as no "admin" charges are being applied, I only see that you are being asked to pay for the electricity you have consumed. Knowing that no regular payment amount was being taken from your bank month on month, did you not think to save to pay for the electricity you were using? If I don't get a bill every quarter, I know full well that eventually a bigger bill will arrive covering a longer period of time.

ALIBOBSY

You definately want to pursue this with the ombudsman. What have EDF said about the whole thing? You may have to come to an arrangement with them whilst the compaint about N power goes through.
I had a friend who had enormous trouble with Npower-long story, but the ombudsman agreed with her and Npower had to write off most of the bill they were chasing for.

To be honest after the problems she had (I heard them say one thing on the the phone one day and change it the next, outright lies) as well as many others online I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole no matter how much cheaper they say they are.

Good luck
ali x

DVardysShadow

Whatever else you do, get paying your bill to your current supplier either for the last month or the last quarter. When you pay, send a letter, keep a copy, to state which period you are paying for. You must do this to avoid being categorised as a "can't pay, won't pay customer".

project500

Looks like you have only been charged for the power you have used so just pay the bills.

NotNpower_2

Thanks for your reply's.

To those who have pointed out that it is electricity I consumed - I accept this or at least part consumed as it was also consumed by several flatmates who have since moved on so I can't realistically recover the money from them.

My point is this: NPower repeatedly reasured me that the supply would be restored over the period of a year and they repeatedly forgot all about it. I was blue in the face trying to get them to sort the problem out and each person I spoke to, probably to get me off the phone, promised me that NPower would cover the costs. And why not, if they can't get their act together why shouldn't it cost them, surely that is the only incentive that means anything to them.

Was it naive of me to take them at their word and trust them, looks like it I guess but I did. And consequently I didn't save and I didn't try to extract money from my flatmates, which is hard to do when you have this sort of uncertainty hanging over anything and no bill in your name!

Call me old fashioned by I think if a company like NPower promises something, it should do it, I'm just holding them to their word.

With respect to EDF I had expected they would take my side. I called them to ask for their assurance that they would not accept any charges back when they took the account back. They agreed assuring me that a zero balance would be on the account. However later they told me this was once again a mistake on the part of the call handler. Sound familiar? I was furious with them for making things so easy for NPower and effectively taking on the debt. Their complaints team were pretty rude to me Implying that I should have know better. Perhaps that could be a good marketing slogan for both energy companies. I have now borrowed and paid the bill to avoid any risk to my credit rating. But I'll continue to pursue NPower.

I'm waiting to hear back from the ombudsman, not sure what to expect.

NotNpower_2

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

You definately want to pursue this with the ombudsman. What have EDF said about the whole thing? You may have to come to an arrangement with them whilst the compaint about N power goes through.
I had a friend who had enormous trouble with Npower-long story, but the ombudsman agreed with her and Npower had to write off most of the bill they were chasing for.

To be honest after the problems she had (I heard them say one thing on the the phone one day and change it the next, outright lies) as well as many others online I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole no matter how much cheaper they say they are.

Good luck
ali x

Thanks, your friends experience sounds very close to mine with regard to the telephone lies.

Joyful

An Erroneous Transfer means that the supplier who took your supply in error cannot charge you and will send it back to the previous supplier where it will be billed as if it never left. I would have accepted the £150 offered but can understand your frustration.

If I was you I would have requested in writing that they would pay for your energy. You would have then found out this does not happen. You may find the Ombudsman just gets them to write you a letter of apology.

Your original Supplier has done nothing wrong in all this so would have need to be paid which I see that you have done.

The problem seems to be lack of training in Staff that gave you the wrong information.

NotNpower_2

Hi Joyful
Thanks for your honest insight I appreciate your insider view. I'm now sure that NPower did made a mistake when they're staff promised to cover the debt but shouldn't they take responsibility for the consequences of their mistakes? Instead of twisting their words which is what they are now doing. Could I expect more noble behaviour from British Gas? I'm looking for a new supplier.

With respect to the Gas, EDF wouldn't actually take that back because a metre had been changed by NPower. Npower honoured their promise for the case paying that bill because they had no choice, not having a legal account with me. This proves that for all the wrong reasons the right thing can get done.

Joyful wrote: »

An Erroneous Transfer means that the supplier who took your supply in error cannot charge you and will send it back to the previous supplier where it will be billed as if it never left. I would have accepted the £150 offered but can understand your frustration.

If I was you I would have requested in writing that they would pay for your energy. You would have then found out this does not happen. You may find the Ombudsman just gets them to write you a letter of apology.

Your original Supplier has done nothing wrong in all this so would have need to be paid which I see that you have done.

The problem seems to be lack of training in Staff that gave you the wrong information.

project500

As an N Power customer that does pay his bill I am glad they are not letting every Tom !!!!!! or Harry off their bills just because a supply anomaly occurs. That isn’t fair to the rest of us being supplied with power especially pensioners. If one suddenly doesn’t get a bill from ones power suppliers one needs to be making overtures to the last power company you did pay to find out why the bills ceased.
As for your flat mates, one presumes you hold the lease and are therefore responsible for obtaining a fair proportion of any monies towards power supplies from them. Not absolving you of responsibility and pushing it onto flat a mates long gone that is not fair either. The world doesn’t work like that and there are no free lunches, the whole thing sounds like a dishonest and surreptitious attempt to wriggle out of paying for power actually used to me, just because the power companies made a billing mistake.

Joyful

NotNpower wrote: »

Hi Joyful
Thanks for your honest insight I appreciate your insider view. I'm now sure that NPower did made a mistake when they're staff promised to cover the debt but shouldn't they take responsibility for the consequences of their mistakes? Instead of twisting their words which is what they are now doing. Could I expect more noble behaviour from British Gas? I'm looking for a new supplier.

.

I can only say that BG should treat an ERR Transfer in the same way I advised in my post. I know that BG have dramatically reduced the amount of complaints this year after a lot of problems with the Computer system have been resolved. This means we are able to give better service but as with all companies sometimes there is someone who may give out wrong info as we are all human.