NPower Question

mike+caz

Hi
I have just spent the last hour arguing with N Power over their Direct Debit policy. Breif history:-

I pay monthly by DD £80 a month which I thought was £40 for each. However having received my bill today I find that they have taken £50 for gas and £30 for lec, which means that I am £161 in credit on my gas and £135 debit on my lec. In the bill they said that I was in debit on my lec account so they were putting my DD up to £134 a month even though I am in credit on my gas. I told them to take the money from the gas and pay lec that would leave me owing nothing on lec and £25 credit on gas. They said they couldnt do that and that in order for me to continue paying by DD they payment had to go up. I said that there is no way I could afford the increase and refused to pay it, they then said that I have no right to say how much DD is taken it is up to them to say!!:mad:

I maybe wrong but I thought I could say how much DD I want to pay and if at the end of the year I owe them anything I pay up (I did last year).
They then said that because I was refusing the new DD amount that they would cancel my DD and then I would lose my discount. I am afraid I then lost my temper.:o I eventually argued the DD back down to £80 the orginal amount but they said that they would them send me a letter that i had to sign to say that if I got into debt because I refused the new amount of DD that i was fully responsible!! I thought i was responsible anyway

Can anyone tell me please are NPower in the right to day how much DD I have to pay

Thanks for letting me rant...

Cardew

You sign a variable Direct Debit Agreement and with any company(not just Utility companies) that means you give the company authority to decide the level of the payment.

The only stipulation is that they must inform you in advance of any increase they intend to make. Note inform you, not seek your agreement!!

Obviously if you are unhappy with the amount and feel it is unjustified, then you contact the company and try to reach an agreement, but by definition it takes both parties to reach an agreement and if the company don't agree with you they end the DD agreement and you lose the discount.

If the customer called the tune, I would insist that all my DD payments would be £1 a month and leave my money earning interest - in 5 or 10 years (if they could not increase my payments because I refused) I would have earned a fair bit of interest!!!

Obviously in the real world both parties strive to reach a compromise. However to be fair to all Utility companies this forum is full of posts from disgruntled people who blame the company for setting their DD too low and find they owe £hundreds!

So from what you have stated NPower are correct.

johnwallace

Change to some other supplier.

I am with E.on and they work out the direct debit after adding the estimate gas and electric bills together so there is never a debit or credit for either gas or electric, it is a debit or credit on the total bill.

Gas estimate a year £400, electricity estimate a year £500 total £900 DD £75 per month

mike+caz

Cardew wrote: »

You sign a variable Direct Debit Agreement and with any company(not just Utility companies) that means you give the company authority to decide the level of the payment.

The only stipulation is that they must inform you in advance of any increase they intend to make. Note inform you, not seek your agreement!!

Obviously if you are unhappy with the amount and feel it is unjustified, then you contact the company and try to reach an agreement, but by definition it takes both parties to reach an agreement and if the company don't agree with you they end the DD agreement and you lose the discount.

If the customer called the tune, I would insist that all my DD payments would be £1 a month and leave my money earning interest - in 5 or 10 years (if they could not increase my payments because I refused) I would have earned a fair bit of interest!!!

Obviously in the real world both parties strive to reach a compromise. However to be fair to all Utility companies this forum is full of posts from disgruntled people who blame the company for setting their DD too low and find they owe £hundreds!

So from what you have stated NPower are correct.

Thanks Cardew

So I was wrong then. However as I see it I was not in debt but in credit so they should not have tried to increase my DD by so much. After all saying I am going to use £64 more of gas and lec a month is ridiculas.

mike+caz

johnwallace wrote: »

Change to some other supplier.

I am with E.on and they work out the direct debit after adding the estimate gas and electric bills together so there is never a debit or credit for either gas or electric, it is a debit or credit on the total bill.

Gas estimate a year £400, electricity estimate a year £500 total £900 DD £75 per month

Thanks johnwallace

Will do that tomorrow.

needabargin_2

but if you used the credit from you gas what would you use towards your winter usage, as the suppliers have a responsibility to make sure that you pay enough DD to cover usage and not have a balance outstanding on your account.

undaunted

I don't think you are wrong personally. A DDI is variable but they are supposed to give you 7 days notice of any changes and you do have the right to cancel it.

You can also ask for any current credit balance back / to be used to offset your bills. You are not in arrears with Npower (overall) so why should you be forced to give them even more of your hard earned money? It may be that at some stage you ended up needing to pay more to cover both but you aren't there now.

PS An hour arguing with Npowers is nothing, they are just a very unreasonable company with a consistently poor reputation for customer service. If you aren't tied into them you could always consider just going elsewhere & see whether that "focuses their mind"!

wherediditallgothen

undaunted wrote: »

PS An hour arguing with Npowers is nothing, they are just a very unreasonable company with a consistently poor reputation for customer service. If you aren't tied into them you could always consider just going elsewhere & see whether that "focuses their mind"!

I agree. From my experience N Power are w*nkers. :mad:

undaunted

wherediditallgothen wrote: »

I agree. From my experience N Power are w*nkers. :mad:

:rotfl:You might like the story of the man in Swindon winning £3000 in Court for their "harrassment" then! (see post 55 of https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2077559 ) :beer:

davidgmmafan

Firstly what you have been told about not being able to tranfser a balance from one account to another is complete non-sense it certainly CAN be done.

I think I know what is happening here and it may be helpful to explain it. There are two types of reassessment with regards to a monthly direct debit customer. There is an annual one which, as you'd expect, looks at any balance and consumption over a 12 month period. If at this point, with a meter reading, either fuel is in credit by £60 or more it is automatically refunded.

The other reassessment is called a mid term or six monthly reassessment. I personally refer to them as !!!!!! reassessments because of situations like yours. On both fuels they are looking at anticipated useage (usaully from looking at the same period last year) over six months. So in your case I expect the following to be the case. The gas payment will be stating the same or only reducing slightly as you'll need any credit and payments to cover your Winter consumption. Electricity will be increasing to cover cons and balance in six months.

So possible actions, you can insist on having the payments calculated over 12 months, it will mess up the next reassessment a little as there may be some debit balance but this isn't the end of the world. You can transfer the balance from the gas to elec, though this may leave a debit balance on the gas, particulalry if the DD is set the 12 month figure for consumption (your usage will be higher in Winter).

So yes you do have some say in the direct debit, if you complain they will probably be more willing to compromize. Sounds like you've spoken to a right muppet IMO.

There is a certain logic to the reassessment as I've tried to explain above but I agree it can be a nightmare to get them to see sense.

Oh BTW when is your direct debit discount due? This is worth around £8/month off the direct debit amount, but the reassessment doesn't include this.

Terrylw1

It kind of depends on who you speak to. Given the standard of poor call centre training, these situations easily happen!

They can do the reassessment including any current credit which as you wanted, will help. However, after that if your expected usage exceeds this, they will want to increase your monthly DD.

This kind of thing is also done via automation, so there is little space to move. However, complaining to a manager or registering a complaint it more likely to get you around this.

Do you get a dual fuel discount? If your billing is split rather than merged, it will cause problems that could lead to this.