please help...forged n-power contract account now in debit

shauny450

Premier wrote: »

Don't worry about it.

The contract isn't legally binding on you if your signature was forged. The supplier would have to take up the matter with the forger .... which according to you would be themselves, so one wonders why they bothered?

Of course you may actually have a contract with the nPower. You often don't need to sign anything. Am I correct in presuming the allegations of forgery are simply a fabrication as it appears you've not even seen a signature?

she told me that they have a contract with my signature on it and that i did it over the doorstep....so i know that it is rubbish because i would never sign anything like that....

shauny450

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Quite agree dogshome; this is far from satisfactory. Unfortunately, the use of the wrong payment device on Prepayment Meters is a problem throughout the industry.

Customers sometimes use a different supplier's device or a previous occupier's device.

Payments made on a Prepayment Meter go to each supplier via an infrastructure provider. Where the wrong device is used, the payment will be mis-directed or held by the infrastructure provider as an unallocated transaction.

This can result in payments being channelled to a wrong account, to a different supplier or, as above, held as an unallocated transaction.

To address this, Ofgem have introduced a regulatory process across the industry to streamline the allocation of payments to the correct supplier.

I can't comment on what has happened to the OP's payments as there are not enough details. They could be sitting on an old E.ON account or be in the unallocated batch. However, I'm speculating.

Once they contact us or Npower, the above process for mis-directed payments can be started to ensure the money goes where it should.

When the account moved away from us, we would have issued a final statement up to the meter reading Npower provided and closed the account.

In normal circumstances, the customer would have stopped using our device and started using the one Npower provided. In this case, payments would have gone to the correct account.

However, if this is an Erroneous Transfer, the circumstances would not have been normal. Therefore, I can well understand the OP's confusion.

It's important the OP contacts either us or Npower to start the ball rolling.

Hope this brief description of what can sometimes happen is useful. If anyone would like any more details just give me a shout.

Malc

thankyou soo much for your advice...i have contacted n-power and e-on...n-power say that they have been recieving payments,but that the tariff is too low...and told me that they are sending me a pin number to reset the key...then they will be able to work out the actual bill amount....do i have to reset it???...i dont think i should,as i never agreed to be with them in the first place....

dogshome

Hi shauny450 - As you are finding out, N'powers Telephone Customer Service Desk are not exactly falling over themseves to investigate the problem, and their response is limited to Giveusmoney.

You really must go over the heads of these basic soldiers by writing a Complaint letter as detailed in Post 6.
If you don't N'power will just see this as unpaid debt, and escalate the matter to the point where you are getting solicitors letters and threats of Court proceedings, but having a complaint letter to deal with should stop all that in it's tracks

shauny450

sweetstudent wrote: »

Would like to add to the eon-rep, well done for a brilliant and through explanation.....

definately!!...fantastic help malc!!....

shauny450

dogshome wrote: »

Hi shauny450 - As you are finding out, N'powers Telephone Customer Service Desk are not exactly falling over themseves to investigate the problem, and their response is limited to Giveusmoney.

You really must go over the heads of these basic soldiers by writing a Complaint letter as detailed in Post 6.
If you don't N'power will just see this as unpaid debt, and escalate the matter to the point where you are getting solicitors letters and threats of Court proceedings, but having a complaint letter to deal with should stop all that in it's tracks

but as of yet they dont know how much the debt is....as they want me to reset the key to give them the bill total...i dont know if i HAVE to reset it...i really dont want to,as why should i if i never agreed to be a customer in the first place....the bill i had from them is in credit,but she told me that it will be in debit when the bill is worked out....

shauny450

forgotmyname wrote: »

I had an Npower letter addressed to some wierd name, As this property was new when we moved in & nobody else has ever lived
here i opened it, Lucky i did. It was thanking the named person for choosing them for their gas and electric.

I was with british gas at the time and phoned them straight away. They seemed unconcerned and would have willingly let the
transfer take place. One of the many reasons i left them.

I phoned Npower and they cancelled the paperwork & sent me a letter proving it, I insisted on that.

Terrible they can do this, Wonder how many people have been switched and not noticed? Easier with key meters?
Just a quick note, Here is your new key please destroy the old one.

Why not have a simple precaution of needing a migration code like the phone/BB companies use?

exactly!!...the main problem i have is that i didnt realise that the switch had taken place....if i had caught it early enough it would have been easy to sort it out...

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi shauny

I'm really sorry you are having so much hassle sorting this out.

As Npower are currently your provider, you will need to use their payment device. If you continue to use ours, more of your payments will go to the wrong area as I explained earlier.

Once you have done this, I would ask for the account to be billed up to date using actual meter readings. This will allow you to see exactly where you stand.

Any debt on the account can then be discussed with Npower.

I can't speak for Npower but, if we had taken over the account incorrectly, we would treat this as a complaint. A full investigation would then be carried out to see what happened three years ago.

As the account moved to Npower three years ago, it is too late to send back via the Erroneous Transfer route. Therefore, you will need to change supplier if you do not want them to continue supplying your electricity.

You can start to switch supplier any time you wish. I would pop your usage in kWh on to one of the comparison sites to make sure you opt for the deal which best suits your needs.

As you say, changing supplier can take between 4 and 6 weeks. During this time, Npower will continue to supply your electricity.

They may object to you leaving if there is a debt on the account. However, there is an industry wide process in place called the Debt Assignment Protocol (DAP).

Basically, this means if a Prepayment customer has a debt of up to £200 and wants to change supplier, the preferred supplier must take on the debt.

I put some info about the DAP on another thread the other day. Please see the following link (post number 2).

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2489807

I hope this helps a little shauny. As before, give me a shout if I can help further as will be glad to do so.

Malc

david39

This tale explains a mystery call to my front door that I had some months ago from someone claiming to be from the company who operate our nearest electricity generating station.

He explained that the company were cataloguing all meters in their distribution area and he needed to log the number of our meter. The easiest way, he said, would be to take it from our latest bill.

Smelling a rat, I sent him on his way, but I can see now that, had I been a payment-device user and if he had taken our meter number (and probably noted or memorised my name as well) he could easily have switched us to another supplier without our knowledge and, presumably, gained a fat commission that would be paid before I realised I had been switched.

Even if this is not the explanation of the call, it must have been dodgy because the generating company could easily have got the information from the sub-suppliers directly, rather than sending people round on a house-by-house survey.

shauny450

david39 wrote: »

This tale explains a mystery call to my front door that I had some months ago from someone claiming to be from the company who operate our nearest electricity generating station.

He explained that the company were cataloguing all meters in their distribution area and he needed to log the number of our meter. The easiest way, he said, would be to take it from our latest bill.

Smelling a rat, I sent him on his way, but I can see now that, had I been a payment-device user and if he had taken our meter number (and probably noted or memorised my name as well) he could easily have switched us to another supplier without our knowledge and, presumably, gained a fat commission that would be paid before I realised I had been switched.

Even if this is not the explanation of the call, it must have been dodgy because the generating company could easily have got the information from the sub-suppliers directly, rather than sending people round on a house-by-house survey.

this happened with me too!!!!...e-on changed my meter about 3 1/2 years ago.....then 2 weeks later,a man turned up to my house saying he had come to change the meter..i told him that i had a brand new one fitted he asked to see it,...and because i thought maybe e-on had made a mistake and didnt realise that they had already fitted it i let him..
he came in and looked at it and said "yes i have to change it"..and i said who are u with??...and he said n-power..i told him that i i wasnt with n-power and they must have made a mistake i then asked him to leave....maybe this is how it happened?????....i didnt think anything of it at the time..because he didnt change the meter!!..but for all i know he could have taken any details when he looked at it!!!!.....i feel like a right fool,i should have asked who he was with before i let him look at the meter.......