NPower - is it me?

bunking_off

Last September I signed up for NPower sign online dual fuel. Note, dual fuel, not electricity and gas as two separate unrelated services, but a single contract for dual fuel.

Well, they set up a direct debit, and I thought no more of it, other than to religiously over-ride their estimated readings with the correct ones. DD was on the low side, but that's fine by me...better to have the money in my bank than their's.

Now, 9 months on, it seems that the direct debit only applied to electricity. Only now have they decided to set up a new DD to cope with gas, and, even worse, 3 weeks later, decided to up it to approx 3 times the level warranted in order to pay off the "arrears".

However, although there's a £300-odd arrear on the gas bill, there's £200 credit on the electricity one, because the amount they've taken there is far too much (as I say, I thought that was for both combined).

So I ring up the number on the letter notifying of the DD increase to see if they can do the common sense thing of using the credit on the electricity bill to sort out the debt on the gas bill...keeping in mind these are internal constructs of NPower, because I signed a single contract for dual fuel.

Apparently not. In fact, the number was for gas and if I wanted to talk about electricity, I'd need to ring a different number. If I want to sort it out, I'll need to get a credit cheque from the electricity dept, bank it, and send a cheque to the gas dept. Is it me?

Call me awkward, but I don't think I'll bother. Come Sept once my 12 months is up, I'll move to a supplier where the left and right arms know what each other are doing...

Fruitcake

It isn't you. I have just changed to Npower dual fuel. I have my copy of the form with the two DD mandates clearly filled out. I got two letters a week apart asking for the two meter readings, with a note on one saying that I had signed up for direct debit but there was a problem.

I 'phoned them up, their confuser didn't recognise my bank details. I read the numbers out. "Oh, that's not what we've got, someone must have made a mistake when they typed the details in." But they are the same for Gas and Electrickery. If they got one right the other should have been right.
Typed in by different people in different departments I expect.

Then I was told they couldn't activate the DD mandate because the change from previous to new supplier was in progress. We then had a circular conversation along the lines that I didn't want to change-over without the two DDs in place otherwise I wouldn't get the discount, and they couldn't set up the DD until the change-over was complete.

Anyway, I think it's working now but I shall keep a close eye on things.

I changed because it is a better deal than my previous supplier. If anyone is doorstepped by Npower as has been mentioned in other posts and you want rid of them, you could tell them you will not change because it is not truly dual fuel. It's actually no different to paying for your groceries in a supermarket and then paying for your petrol at their filling station in order to get the fuel/shopping discounts they offer. I wouldn't actually want to combine these two activities but I couldn't think of a better egg sample.

Fruitcake

You Only Listen To Me When I'm Wrong

Cardew

It's probably no consolation to you but BG are the same for having completely separate gas and electricity bills when you are on dual fuel.

I have an annex with separate gas and electricity meters so I have 4 bills and 4 direct debits. It would be easier for them, myself and the bank to have just one bill and one direct debit.