N-Power !!!! Up - Guidance required. 31 March 2012 at 12:35PM in Energy 4 replies 723 views

youngmcc

To cut a long story short, we phoned up N-Power after receving a bill showing us in debt by a couple of hundred pounds.

We pay £70 a month and knew something had to be wrong as we were supposed to be on a capped tarrif.

It turned out that they had overcharged us and they ended up putting our account into £470 credit.

We kept £70 in credit and asked for the other £400 to be refunded which it was.

We have now since transferred the £400 to our credit card and do not have this money, however, have received a letter from N-Power this morning advising that they have made another mistake and want the £400 back.

Does anyone have any advice as we do not have the £400 to give them back just now plus still argue that the original tarrif was wrong and that we should have been in credit regardless of the amount.

Thanks

Joyful

£400 is a massive difference from a tariff unless it was a much lower tariff over many years. This would have made me think twice. I would ask Npower if you can repay the amount over the next year and get a confirmed breakdown of the difference in the tariffs.

I just realised that your difference was about £670 so definitely suspicious!

jalexa

youngmcc wrote: »

asked for the other £400 to be refunded which it was.

We have now since transferred the £400 to our credit card and do not have this money, however, have received a letter from N-Power this morning advising that they have made another mistake and want the £400 back.

You are liable for correctly calculated consumption including corrected error.

So the first issue is whether or not the bill has been correctly calculated. Possibly with some effort that can be established as a matter of fact. If you feel the sudden reappearence of the £400 is unfair or unreasonable, ask nicely for payment terms. If you are not satisfied with the response raise a formal complaint in writing or by email stating your concerns.

BTW, don't rely on "we pay £70 a month and knew something had to be wrong as we were supposed to be on a capped tarrif" which on its own isn't necessarily correct. You need to look closely at the billing.

macman

Serious misunderstanding here. A capped tariff means that the unit kWh rate is capped-not that you'll never pay more than £70 per month, regardless of usage!
If your consumption results in usage of more than £70pm, then you'll fall into arrears, regardless of tariff type.

Terrylw1

The first thing is to get to the bottom of the consumption to determine whether you owe it back or they owed what they gave you.

Given you've just got a request,it sounds like someone has amended your bill and there is something you haven't see.

Suppliers have an obligation to sensible money management with their customers and its unlikely such a large refund wasnt checked by a manager to authorise it.

You can easily say they misadvised you and you want to spread it over up to 12 months which they would do in a standard case anyway.