NPOWER Problem..PLEASE CAN ANYONE HELP??? WE ARE DESPERATE.

sonice2cu

PLEASE CAN ANYONE HELP??? WE ARE DESPERATE. We haven't paid a gas bill for nearly 3 years, and have been landed with a 7K gas bill. We have tried to sort it out with NPower and they say they will look into why they have never sent us a bill for the last 2 and half years. We thought we where paying both gas and electric with another supplier until the meter had to be changed for a new one. I have called them on numerous occassions to get it sorted out as this is causing both my wife and I great stress.. They keep saying that they have put our account on hold, not to pay anything and we will not recieve any bills, but this has been going on now for the last 8 months, and we haven't paid anything. We are so worried that we are going to be hit by a huge huge bill that we will never be able to afford.. Can anyone offer any advice??

Thanks
Philip & Alison

furby-2003

im sure you cannot be billed for anything older than 2 years. thats about all i know.

bulchy

Contact Energywatch, they will advise you. Good luck
Sue

Cardew

How do you mean 'thought' you had been paying another company? Has money been paid or not?

It must be almost impossible to run up a £7,000 gas bill in under 3 years.

Gal

Have you checked with your local Gas transporter to see if Npower are actually your supplier?

I agree with Cardew surely if you 'thought' you had being paying another supplier just check a bill to see if its for electric, Gas or Both.

The Energy ombudsman would / could get involved regarding you not being billed for 2 and a half years as someone has already pointed out they cannot back date your bill past 2 years. They would be breaking there code of conduct.

sonice2cu

Sorry, I forgot to mention that we own a small guest house, and 2 days after when we moved in, a supplier (Economy Power) turned up and signed us upto what I was led to believe was Gas and electricity, we never even looked at the bills, they just went to our accountant to be processed as it was all done on DD.. A bit stupid not checking, but we were in a bit of a daze starting a new business as it was...

Gal

Here is a link to the code of conduct for suppliers (Accurate billing) - http://www.energy-retail.org.uk/9437_Codes%20of%20PracticePages.pdf

You need page 7 -

If your supplier is at fault, and you do not recieve a bill for more then 2 years, then from July 2006 any outstanding debt that related to energy consumed from more then 2 years ago will be cancelled. From July 2007 this will be 1 year.

If Npower aren't doing anything then you can go to them ombudsman / energywatch and let them deal with it on your behalf.

Is the gas usage for a domestic or a business address?

anniecave

The two years/one year rule only applies to domestic properties, and if you are a guest house it should count as a business. (Sorry). Also I believe the 2/1 year rule is from when you first receive a bill, so if that was a while ago then it also doesn't apply (sorry again!)

So have they actually sent you a £7K bill? Have you seen the bill for it? Do they include real meter readings? Is it all yours (they're not charging you for any previous owners' electricity as well)? Is it on a correct tariff? If it is all yours and it is correct, they should be contacting you with regard to a payment arrangement anyway. For your part, I would for a start to try to work out what you can afford to pay, how much you are using ongoing, as you will need to pay that as well.
I would complain to energywatch anyway, at a minimum they should help to ascertain whether the bills are indeed correct and sort out a suitable payment arrangement.

smartie1976

On the plus point, if you have been paying someone who is not your supplier, you can get this money back once the supplier issue is sorted out.
You will NOT have to pay both.

The suppliers need to sort out who owns the supply first!

mobilegossip

sonice2cu wrote:

Sorry, I forgot to mention that we own a small guest house, and 2 days after when we moved in, a supplier (Economy Power) turned up and signed us upto what I was led to believe was Gas and electricity, we never even looked at the bills, they just went to our accountant to be processed as it was all done on DD.. A bit stupid not checking, but we were in a bit of a daze starting a new business as it was...

Economy Power only ever supplied electricity not gas, to sme,not residential.
It was taken over by Powergen/Eon some time ago.