npower problem, can anyone please help with some advice?

Terrylw1

Doodlebugmagik wrote: »

I'm afraid to say that this story doesn't just apply to existing customers. My father in law died in July, his wife moved to a new property where we can take care of her. Npower is the existing supplier. We supply meter readings and recieve a first quarter bill of over £150. WAY TOO HIGH. (My husband estimated her costs at approx £50. We informed Npower who took new readings - insisted on a 'load test' then told us ther readings were obviously 'the wrong way round' (where have we heard this before?) We were told to make NO PAYMENT until the correct bill arrived. We then receive a RED BILL, follow up call to NPower, new up to date meter readings, apologies (of course) 'it takes up to 4 weeks' to create a new bill. Now we have a DEBT COLLECTOR LETTER!
On calling (again) we are told that we 'Should have made nominal payment' and that the previous instruction not to pay was 'incorrect'. Again insistence that the reading are the 'wrong way round' and although a new bill has been raised it may still take 4 WEEKS to get to us!?
In the meantime a frail lady who is mourning the death of her husband, living in a new premises and does not need any further stress is losing sleep and worrying herself ill! Really Npower...it appears you can just make it up as you go along. WE are DISGUSTED at your behaviour and are moving companies ASAP - regardless of your reminding us how 'difficult' it will be......Needless to say I am One Very Angry Customers DAughter in Law!

If its any help, they are not allowed to block a switch where the Outstanding Charges are either disputed by you or are an accumulation that you agreed is correct but exists as an accumulation due to their error.

See SLC14 in the supplier .PDF's in this link to Ofgem's site.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Licensing/Work/Pages/licence-conditions-consolidated.aspx

So, if by your comment where they stated it would be "difficult" they meant to switch, you are protected from this.

For your issues, you should raise a complaint and you can refer it to the ombudsman after 8 weeks.

It doesn't take that long to reverse a transposition issue if all they need to do is rebill your account...so they have backlogs. A complaint will speed this up.

Are you sure they have corrected any meter problem with their agents? This can add a few weeks.

Toad

We had this also in 2 different addresses, what was more interesting was that in both cases the meters had been read multiple times by meter readers visiting our home. Are they saying they don't trust the contracted readers?

We also finally realised that we had E7 meters and because of that we were paying more than we should for our daytime electricity. We didn't know that we were entitled to have the meter changed and therefore pay LESS for our daytime usage - remember you only save if you use a fair bit of power at night, for example in storage heaters. You may also be paying a higher standing charge.

It might be worth you guys just checking how much you really do use at night and how much you would end up paying with a single tariff meter.

Terrylw1

Toad wrote: »

We had this also in 2 different addresses, what was more interesting was that in both cases the meters had been read multiple times by meter readers visiting our home. Are they saying they don't trust the contracted readers?

We also finally realised that we had E7 meters and because of that we were paying more than we should for our daytime electricity. We didn't know that we were entitled to have the meter changed and therefore pay LESS for our daytime usage - remember you only save if you use a fair bit of power at night, for example in storage heaters. You may also be paying a higher standing charge.

It might be worth you guys just checking how much you really do use at night and how much you would end up paying with a single tariff meter.

Yes, meter reader errors are common. Some meters have to be transposed by the readers when reading them as there are stickers on the meter showing them to.

Sometimes it can even be a data issue where the Meter Operator is telling everyone they are the opposite way round. These guys are the experts so are more likely to be correct but if they keyed them through the wrong way round, the meter readers will be correct...but you have to prove this to get them to alter it.

MikeR71

More problems accessing npower website since Sunday. At first I thought it was my internet connection but soon it was clear the fault is with npower. Anyone else has problem accessing their site?

25.6_Pre-contract_oblig

Hi MikeR71,

npower are in the process of moving all of their Customers to their 'new system'.

Others have reported (on 20th and 24th March 2013) that the 'new system' was closed to receiving Meter Readings online until
17 April 2013: see Post #181 and the threads linked there.

Unfortunately, there are many issues with npower's 'new system' as documented in the long thread:

Warning: npower accept new customers without sending them a Contract
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4273611

As the title of this thread is:
npower problem, can anyone please help with some advice?,
my advice is read the main thread (above) for background as to why so many Customers are being let down.

25.6_Pre-contract_oblig

nPower

MikeR71 wrote: »

More problems accessing npower website since Sunday. At first I thought it was my internet connection but soon it was clear the fault is with npower. Anyone else has problem accessing their site?

Hi MikeR71,

Between Friday the 12th and Monday the 15th, npower was closed to move our customers into our new system and to make sure this move went as smoothly as possible. This also meant that parts of the website had to be updated.

Everything is now open again and the website is running so you shouldn't experience any further problems accessing npower.com.

Kind regards,

Adam