Refund from Powergen - all thanks to MSE!!

sc6_2

Hi All

Only found this site a few weeks ago but am massively hooked - done the credit card shuffle and gone all OS on the shopping and cooking!!

Decided today was time to look into switching power suppliers (thanks to Martin's email!) Was staggered by the amount we were in arrears with our electric despite having our DD increased to £110 a month last month:eek: OH deals with all the bills so I had not looked at it before. Went back 18 months and discovered we had been double billed for one quarter!! (Its a long story involving Powergen cancelling our account cos they got us confused with a new cust with a similar address and they thought we had moved. They did a final reading which should have been for two weeks but they included the whole previous quarter which we had already been billed for - and this debt has just been added on at each quarter.)

Got OH to ring them up tonight - they agreed straight away and are crediting our account with the £210.00 overbilling!! :T Account is now in credit - not arears - DD should only be £55.00 a month as they were basing the amount on massively inflated usage - and once its all done we can switch!! (havent changed gas or electric before so its got to be worth doing - esp now we arent in arrears!! Have yet to look into whether we can cut down on our actual usage -baby steps - one area at a time!!)

Moral is - dont leave the bills to OH!!

Does anyone think we should ask for compensation or not for the poor customer service and the fact we have paid more than we needed to each month? Athough its their fault we were really stupid not to check it. When it happened in Feb 05) we didnt know about this (obviously!) we just complained at the poor service we got with having our account cancelled and we got £10.00 and four free lightbulbs!! Wow!:rotfl:

Anyway - a huge thanks to Martin and all the wonderful people who post on here - would never have looked into it if you hadnt all motivated me to stop being so apathetic.:o

Rikki

Good for you.
It proves that we just can't trust the big companies to be honest with us. Their computers are a law unto themselves.

BullyCornedBeef

Great news, the utility companies are getting too big for their boots and the government let them charge what they want. Well done.

However, the problem is if you let them 'estimate' they often over charge. I give them my meter readings online so I pay exactly what I owe.

skintchick

Powergen deliberately (IMHO) miscalculated what I should pay them each month when I switched to them, and have just told me I am £166 in arrears and need to pay £84 a month!!!!!
Gonna switch from them as soon as I can.

Knelley

Powergen are a nightmare! I have changed from them recently after 2 YEARS of wrong bills!

I never recieved a bill from them in the first 6 months but I still paid my direct debit. I phoned them when I realised I hadn't recieved a bill and then they messed up my figures and informed me that I owed them over £4000.00!!!!! I argued this and then got another bill for over £1000.00! I decided to change to another supplier after A YEAR of trying to rectify this problem with them. They are now saying I owe them nearly £500.

I would seriously ask anyone to consider going with them as they have caused me nothing but trouble for the past 2 years.

lizzie12_2

I agree Powergen are a nightmare........ We had right trouble with them and have now swapped over to NPower .... who at the moment have had no problems with.
Powergen are STILL sending out info asking us to go back...... Wrota a letter explaining we were happy bla bla bla and not to contact us again.

Crabman

Powergen are a nightmare - I was supposed to receive 2000 clubcard points for switching to them, but 6 months on and 2 phone calls in that period, and they still aren't on my statement :mad: We're paying £88 for dual fuel per month. Having said that we owed them £189 but checking the readings don't overlap, it isn't something I'd thought about at all I'll be doing that later tonight :T

sc6_2

thanks for all your replies - very interesting. Have now switched to Npower for both gas and elec. I will be watching out for the final bill from Powergen very very carefully. I have received a recalculated one correcting the period when the overdeduction happened - but wont be totally happy until I can check the figures on the final bill. I will certainly be checking my meters every month from now on and will be supplying our own readings. Its been a real wake up call.

Edinburghlass_2

Its good advice by BullyCornedBeef and not just Powergen but any utility company to ensure you give them your readings on a regular basis and make sure the bills are based on those readings