Angry with N Power

justinking69

Hello everyone!

Im very upset and angry and I hope that someone can help me.

Having spent 3 years knowing what kind of winter bills Southern Electric send to me every january since 07, on Dec 1st 2011, I recently moved to a smaller house in a different area. On the day i moved in I contacted N Power who told me that I had to take their supply for gas and electricity. (I didnt want to do this). Knowing full well how much (roughly) my forthcoming bills were going to be, january arrived and went and I recieved no bills. Because we are now in March, I contacted N Power to find out where my winter bills were, only to be told that they were indeed on the way & my forthcoming gas bill is to be £265 and my Electricity is £180.

I am flabbergasted by this and I am launching a public complaint. In the last three january winters I had always expected my Southern Electric january bills to be about £160 for gas and about £120. I am always mindful of my useage.

It is mainly the gas bill that i am furious about. Please understand that my new house (like my previous house) is insulated, i have not had the heating on any more than usual during the winter and while I work from home I do not leave things on. I have energy saving stuff everywhere in this house, I have downsized into a two bedroom house, so this house is smaller than my previous one. Plus I dont have a family and so i live alone and there are even less radiators in this smaller house. (Although I did have two new radiators fitted upstairs on the week that i moved in) I also spoke to the engineer who recently serviced my boiler prior to my moving in so as far as i know there is nothing wrong with it apart from the fact that it is not one of the newer models. I have however asked N Power to change my electricity meter which they are doing in a couple of week's time. At the beginning they said they would not do this.

I awaiting N Power to contact me so that I may register my complaint, and as a mark of good faith I will begin to pay off what I think I owe in monthly instalments, (so that would be about £160 gas & £120 electricity) however I am being ripped off and its upsetting.

What would be helpful is to know where i go from here. It would be helpful to have direct contact with anyone at N Power who is NOT a customer service rep. Also, could it be possible that the previous owner of my new house didnt pay their final bills? When i moved in here on the 1st dec, I also asked them to update my electricity meter. They wouldn't. It is only now that I have arranged for this to happen as the current meter (which has two rates) and which is quite old ran in conjunction with storage heaters. I have GCH here at this new house.

I am catagoricaly NOT paying these bills in full and im sick of being given false info and getting ripped off. I now know that I could have gone direct to Southern Electric right from the outset, I have also asked them to start finding the recorded call i made to them on Dec 1st as I did not want to be with N Power in the first instance. And after this I want to get away from them.

I have also spoken to Southern Electric about taking back the supply at my new house, but until this is resolved (and i suspect I will end up having to pay off the bils in full) they cannot :-( However Southern did tell me that N Power's unit price is higher than them.

I want to know what Ombudsman to contact. I may even contact 'Rip off Britain' ! lol

What are my rights. Please help. £500 for utility bills will clean me out. And im not workng much right now

Justin

jalexa

justinking69 wrote: »

On the day i moved in I contacted N Power who told me that I had to take their supply for gas and electricity.

First of all, keep calm and switch your bold off. I also recommend that you focus on one or two issues rather than having such a sweeping rant.

The first thing to look at is the statement "NPower...told me that I had to take their supply for gas and electricity"

That is not "wrong" but the exact wording is very important. In general you do need to take the incumbent suppliers supply, but only for 28 days. In the case of the electricity meter it is possible though rare that the metering arrangement is only supported by the incumbent supplier.

Before you have a complaint to progress you need to establish the facts about the meter and the telephone conversation.

I have however asked N Power to change my electricity meter which they are doing in a couple of week's time. At the beginning they would not do this.

Again the wording and the reason for your request is important. If you had been prepared to pay to change an unusual metering arrangement they cannot refuse.

I know know that I could have gone direct to Southern Electric right from the outset,

Well certainly for gas (after 28 days), possibly for electric (after 28 days) depending on the acceptability of the metering.

Further advice possible but that will do for the moment.

justinking69

hi

I am calm. im not writing in capitals and im not ranting...

other than that, thanks for the reply.

Other advice sought. I will check back in with this later.

J

spiro

justinking69 wrote: »

I have however asked N Power to change my electricity meter which they are doing in a couple of week's time. At the beginning they said they would not do this.

Firstly turn bold off and give us simple facts like why did you want them to change the meter?

Secondly what type of tariff were you on with SSE? Dual fuel, DD, online billing? Unless you instructed NPower to do anything different, by default you will be put in their standard pay on bill tariff which is the most expensive tariff regardless of supplier. If you have a 2-rate meter but no night storage heaters it is down to you to tell the supplier if you want to be on an E7 tariff or a standard 24/7 tariff, they can't read minds.

As to contacting the Ombudsman, first you have to raise a formal coplaint (in writting) with NPower and they have 8 weeks to respond. If at the end of that you can not come to an agreement you can progress to the Ombudmans.

In terms of paying for previous tenants bills, the first thing you should have done when you moved in was take meter readings and pass these to NPower, if you did that the bill is only for your usage.

As to the bill that is on its way is it based on Actual or Estimated readings, if its the latter then the previous occupants may have been higher users than you.

spiro

justinking69 wrote: »

hi

I am calm. im not writing in capitals and im not ranting...

other than that, thanks for the reply.

Other advice sought. I will check back in with this later.

J

Then turn bold off. And sorry but your post is a rant i.e. being ripped off (what facts support this), refusing to pay bill (on what grounds other that it is higher that with SSE)......

justinking69

Can we focus on the situation I have written about please! I always post in bold when i come on here and once again i am not ranting. And if I am, this is MSE. Everyone rants on here. However as the bold situation inexplicably seems to be a problem here today I have turned it off.

Back to the subject at hand

With SSE i was on dual fuel. With N Power it was a standard tariff. And they told me to stay on that one when i moved in here. I dont know what an e7 tariff is.

Meter readings were given to N Power on the day i moved in, so im guessing the previous owner paid their final bills.

The bills are based on actual readings as the meter man read them two weeks ago.

I did not find n power helpful when i moved in and feel they did not offer me any options. To this day I still dont even have account numbers with them. Even though i moved here on dec 1st

J

macman

Thanks-the reason you were asked to switch off bold is because it makes your posts very hard to read. You have quoted at length how large the bill are in £'s, but this not really relevant, as prices have risen massively in the last 12m . What you need to focus on is your actual kWh usage-in particular, the actual annual usage, and for the same periods in previous years.
Isn't it a bit premature to start shouting 'rip off' without actually establishing your usage?
There is no issue with having an E7 meter on a single rate tariff as long as the two readings are correctly totalled.
Edit: just realised that you moved house recently (told you your post was hard to read)! So how can you possibly expect the bills to be the same as before? A smaller property does not necessarily means smaller bills-what about different insulation, construction boiler efficiency, aspect, sunlight, etc?
Have you checked that you haven't been automatically put on an E7 tariff, since you have an E7 meter? It's up to you to specify the tariff you want.

spiro

justinking69 wrote: »

With SSE i was on dual fuel. With N Power it was a standard tariff. And they told me to stay on that one when i moved in here.

They may have suggest it but you could have requested to go on a dual fuel tariff its you choice.

justinking69 wrote: »

I dont know what an e7 tariff is.

An E7 tariff is were you have a 2 rate meter typically because you have night storage heaters. On this tariff you get cheaper night rate (for 7 hours hence E7) but pay a premium on all elec used during the day. What standard tariff are you on?

justinking69 wrote: »

Meter readings were given to N Power on the day i moved in, so im guessing the previous owner paid their final bills.

The bills are based on actual readings as the meter man read them two weeks ago.

This means your bill is accurate but is high as far as you are concerned.

justinking69 wrote: »

I did not find n power helpful when i moved in and feel they did not offer me any options. To this day I still dont even have account numbers with them. Even though i moved here on dec 1st

I think they are in the middle of upgrading their bill system so this may account for this.

Based on this I think the only thing that you can actually complain about is being told you had to go on the standard tariff from 1/12/11 until now.

People see posts that are completely in bold or caps as shouting/yelling and it should really be used for highlighting things as that is its point.

In terms of your original post, if you have put some of the information you have just provided in that and made it shorter you would probably got more helpful answers sooner.

lithopsian

No facts, just complaints = rant

spiro

lithopsian wrote: »

No facts, just complaints = rant

Correct in one.

undaunted

Irrespective of what font they posted in, whether the last occupier paid their bill or not, when meters were read, etc it seems to me that the basic complaint here is that the poster believes they were mis sold the supply by being deliberately misled into believing they could not simply begin switching supplier.

If this is the case try a look here

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/Energy-mis-selling-complaints

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_190526