What do you do if the Ombudsman gets it wrong??

Terrylw1

I think your bill is too recent to be archived. However, they are swapping over to SAP so if you have been migrated, that's where the archiving comes in.

Something else to think about is, if a customer reading was issued online it wouldn't back out previous bills based on firm readings. Legacy systems never did that either. Its possible they may back out an estimated bill or 2, I think some systems could undo up to 4 but can't be sure as it was a while ago.

So, for a customer reading to back out previous firm readings would require an amended bill created by an operator. Perhaps this is crucial? Backing out readings, even if you did give it, would require investigation first and most likely a meter reader going out.

It could have been sent to the supplier by their Data Collector (the agent they contract to validate all readings). This would still be wrong from your point of view, but could give another issue to explore in terms of how its got an old date on. It still wouldn't change how a billing system would treat it though...it would definitely error out as would an online reading.

Even if a call centre advisor took it, it wouldn't go through to back out previous firm readings.

I think the supplier has managed to change the complaint in the ombudsman mind as its clear they have completely missed what most of your complaint relates to.

Don't forget to add in anything in the links from the SLC's. The ERA code isn't as binding as those.

richpb7

I promised I'd update this thread once I knew how things turned out, so here it is.

The Ombudsman has refused to budge on their position, even though I'm 99% sure they - and Npower - cocked up in their calculations.

• Just to put it into black and white, my original debt (due to Npower's mistakes, not mine) in November 2011 was £1,134.
• Npower ramped up the direct debits so much - eventually to £332 every month - that I haven now paid them £3,208 over the past 12 months.
• That has completely reduced the debt, easily paid for energy use over the year, and left me well over £1,000 in credit with Npower.

As you can imagine, having to pay such large amounts out so quickly has seriously impacted my finances! I'm still trying to get the last of my money back (managed to get them to refund a large chunk last month). Here's hoping the rest of the money arrives in time for Christmas.

So here's the cruncher. People often talk about how you don't have to pay the direct debit, etc., but in this case I went to Npower back in November 2011 specifically to arrange for a reasonable direct debit, and they wouldn't do it. So I went to the Ombudsman for help, and they agreed that Npower was right and the payment was reasonable. Given the figures above, I still contest they were both wrong, but appear to have run out of options! I have even written to the Independent Assessor to complain about the process, but that just got bounced back to the Ombudsman again.

If anyone has any bright ideas they'd be more than welcome to share them, otherwise I'm tempted to just write this off as a bad experience. I'm curious though due to previous comments about the Ombudsman, that they basically can't do their job properly (whether because they're underfunded, or for other reasons). If the general experience of people with the Ombudsman is negative, perhaps there is a bigger underlying problem that needs to be given more prominence? Basically, did I just have a unfortunate ride, or is the system broken?

keiran

So sorry to hear of this saga.

As someone who has complained unsuccessfully to the Energy Ombudsman ( EO), with valid concerns and using its own frameworks and references, and being an astute, informed and articulate consumer, I am in no doubt that the EO is not fit for purpose.

I understand that Ofgem "hived off" the troublesome, boring and irritating matter of individual energy consumer complaints to the EO, which was a body created by the energy companies themselves.

It is clear that the EO sees things from the point of view of the energy companies, and it's clear that any awards are derisory, at a level the company itself would award for minor breaches. On top of this, the staff seem to be utterly arrogant

Whilst all regulatory bodies, over time, can become "captured" by the industries they are supposed to be regulating, the EO is unusual in being captured from the outset.

It is funded by levies from the power companies, and it receives a referral fee of £375 per case ( so it's worth taking things to EO so that your power company has to pay this).

I'm always amazed that bodies can claim they are independent and impartial, just by saying so (!).

The whole EO function needs to be reviewed by the appropriate government authority to assess its effectiveness, impartiality and cost effectiveness.

GraceCourt

richpb7 wrote: »

If anyone has any bright ideas they'd be more than welcome to share them, otherwise I'm tempted to just write this off as a bad experience.

Don't do that! Unless I have completely misunderstood, you are proposing to write-off the £1,000+ that you believe you are in credit, but that nPower won't acknowledge.

You are at the point where I think you need to commence a claim against them in the County Court (if you live in England and Wales, if not it is the Sheriff Court in Scotland), which will (on the these facts) be allocated to the Small Claims Track because it is for under £5,000.

Don't let this put you off - from what I see of your preparation to date, you are more than capable of doing this without a solicitor, and you can issue the claim using Money Claim Online, which actually is cheaper than making the claim at your local Court.

I've been pursuing billing problems with nPower for about 18 months, after they charged me for nearly 2,000 units of electricity that I had already paid for to my previous supplier...something that I had previously been told was not possible. They finally completely re-billed me from scratch recently - but then I noticed that they had re-billed me at the standard tariff, not the online tariff that I signed up for in March 2011!

So I've given them a few weeks to get it right but if they don't, I will be issuing my own County Court claim... I didn't bother with the Energy Ombudsman because I found them to be fairly useless in a previous dispute over a different issue with nPower, when we were living in a caravan unable to get a supply connected to our new house because nPower claimed they couldn't provide a new supply of electricity to an address in Scotland. The day before Scottish Hydro came to fit the new meter, after weeks of unsuccessful arguing, nPower confessed that they had got it completely wrong. We were awarded a token amount in compensation for the weeks that we spent unnecessarily in the freezing cold in a caravan with a gas fire and a generator.

Moral - don't use nPower, but if you do and have the inevitable problems with billing, don't get involved with the Ombudsman, go straight to the County Courts with your claim.

GraceCourt

GraceCourt wrote: »

Unless I have completely misunderstood, you are proposing to write-off the £1,000+ that you believe you are in credit, but that nPower won't acknowledge.

OK, I've worked through the posts again and now I understand better. What is the actual cost of the overdrafts/borrowings that you incurred over the first half of 2012, and what is the cost of the same since you went into credit on the nPower account? There's an argument that you could have been forced to make payment of ALL of the debit balance at any time (e.g. if yu had wanted to close the account and transfer to another supplier) and that therefore the finance costs were your own responsibility, but the graph plainly shows that there was no justification for continuing at the same level of DD after the account went into credit.

Although the answer to my questions would be needed to give you a suggested figure, my initial recommendation would be to (1) write to nPower instructing them to change your DD immediately to the figure of (annual expected energy costs)/12 per month; (2) advise them that you are seeking repayment by them of your finance costs since June 2012 or whenever the account went into credit, and (3) if they don't then amend the DD, each month ask your bank to "recall" the difference between the two figures because you have not authorised it, under the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme. The bank might ask to see your letter setting out the new DD amount, but often they won't.

If they won't pay the sum claimed at (2), issue a "letter before proceedings" giving them 14 days to pay, serving that on them at their registered office as follows:

RWE Npower plc
Windmill Hill Business Park
Whitehill Way
Swindon
SN5 6PB.

The company is registered in England and Wales wth number 3892782.

Failing that, issue the claim. There is a lot of advice about how to take it forward on this site and others.

richpb7

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Regarding the existing DD, I've finally switched away from Npower now, so no more DDs thank god - though they still managed to take one last month, even though I'd already left them, meaning I had to pay two energy suppliers at the same time! Npower do seem to be able to !!!!-up just about everything they do. They say another cheque is on its way ...

To their credit, they did offer - and paid - £300 compensation, though in my estimates that was much less than they were liable for due to their mstakes under the very codes that they signed up to abide by. As you've said, they will try and get away with paying as little as possible. In the very same letter that they offered that though, they raised the DD to the highest level of £332 every month, as according to their data the existing payments weren't enough. As is so patently clear from the charts though - andh as been pointed out in these conversations - that's absolute bulls bits!

As for all the interest/overdraft charges I've had to pay, I've not added it all up but I suspect it might be as much as £200.

The main weakness seems to be the EO still, as it's clear to anyone outside of this dispute that the DD in particular was completely unreasonable, yet they supported this. Maybe one of the watchdog types outfits might pick that up, worth posting a few mails perhaps.

backfoot

I'm already running a parallel thread on the Energy Ombudsman here :

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4126943

You may want to link this thread in and add your experiences. I have already given Ofgem a link to my thread so the more real evidence there is the better.:)