Warning: npower accept new customers without sending them a Contract

*Jane*

I have recieved a phone call today from npower. They did owe me £50 if I had not queried it I dont think I would have recieved it. The reason was I had my electric with them for around 18 months and I never got the £50 yearly rebate for paying by dd. They have now credited it to my gas bill and I have lowered my DD slightly.
As for the contract not sure when or if I am going to recieve one. Its been passed to another department.
But at least I have got the £50 I was owed

*Jane*

This company just get worse they have not taken my dd this month I am at a loss to why. I refuse to ring them and have still not recieved my promised contract. Roll on Jan and I can move somewhere else.

TheSilentOne_2

*Jane* wrote: »

This company just get worse they have not taken my dd this month I am at a loss to why. I refuse to ring them and have still not recieved my promised contract. Roll on Jan and I can move somewhere else.

By the sounds of it Jane what they have done is applied a credit to your account but with the new system it is not done as easy as it sounds.

They no doubt cancelled your direct debit, to apply the credit and because your direct debit payment was due within 14 days then it would automatically pass February's payment and be set now for March.

You would think by paying millions of pounds for a new system that it could apply credits and refunds without having to cancel a persons direct debit payment. So many customers have missed payments due to this stupid system, resulting in bills not being paid fully and payments being increased.

If you have made a complaint regarding your contract then you could go to OfGem as every customer needs a contract to show terms and conditions etc.

*Jane*

I did ring them about it and was told I should have been told that feb payment would not be taken. I have been online and paid the missed payment. I was also told the missing contract complaint is with a different department. Surely how hard can it be to send me a contract in the post.

JohalaReewi

Update to post 138. Turns out npower did send contract docs back when they took over but daughter mislaid them. They have now been found. We are now trying to find out why npower have not issued any bills and the online account is devoid of any npower data.

*Jane*

I have finally recieved my contract today. I had to ring them again the other day as they took my dd out 10 days early. I have had the hassel of going to the bank to reclaim my money back as they admitted they should not of taken it out so early and it was up to me to claim it back. All in all I have had £30 credit given to me on my account for their !!!! ups. I will not be using them again when my contract comes to an end.

Parafira

I requested the switch to Npower on November 7th. Still have not received ANY paperwork, including the Contract.

Electricity account was opened with wrong readings (absolutely random number), then amended to another wrong reading (absolutely random number)

Still waiting for my Gas to be switched, it has been more than four months I still do not have the Gas account!!! Have closed my previous account with another supplier back in January as was told by Npower that my Gas account will be ready on January 4th!!!

Complained 3 times, nothing has been done, even Executive Complaints team is so useless, waiting for 8 weeks since the complaint to pass, then will go to the Energy Ombudsman.


!!! AND ALL THESE PROBLEMS HAPPEN WHEN NPOWER ANNOUNCES 25% INCREASE IN PROFIT !!!

They just use us, simple people.


Npower was fined for mishandling customer complaints a few years back, I guess they have too much money and want to pay more charges. I would not recommend Npower to anyone. I will leave them as soon as my contract is up.

25.6_Pre-contract_oblig

While I've been away I have been sent my Contract!

In fact I've been sent it twice, I don't know when (the TNT Mail is undated).
Both Contracts are dated 17th August 2012: which is the correct date (see Post #2).
In Post #127 I gave my reason for expecting the Contract Date, in my case 17 August 2012, (which I called the generated Date) to be the date 'npower started the process of accepting the switch'.

#1. (from PO Box 177 in Sunderland), is printed single sided using
the "National Trust Green Energy" logo, which is the 'npower brand' for my 'service'.

#2. (from PO Box 3438 in Swindon), is printed double sided using
the "npower" logo. Included with this is a "Standard terms for supplying electricity and gas to domestic customers, October 2012" booklet.

Comments on the Contracts
The Contract (both versions) are correct. They now do mention Gas and they have the rates for Gas (as at 17/08/2012).
As I said in Post #127 (linked above) my DD is not in 'round pounds', which is also correct (in that it does match my actual DD). I did request, on 28 September 2012 (see Post #4),

"... ... I requested 3 things from Stuart (on behalf of npower).
1. A letter about my Gas: giving the details I should have received i.e. the
Rate I will be paying and any other Contract Terms (as I should have already received
in a 'normal Welcome Pack'). We agreed that someone, senior to Stuart, could use
a Word Processor and produce this Letter.
2. Change the bizarre capitalisation of the writing of my name.
3. As a proof that npower had fixed their system (when they had actually fixed it):
regenerate my "Welcome Pack", with the associated legal Contract, and send me a copy
for my records.
... ..."

I have now received 1 (the letter about my Gas) and 3 the regenerated Contract.
I am pleased that the regenerated Contract has been sent.
I take this as evidence that npower are trying to fix their 'broken system'.
So, it has taken MANY months but npower are making some progress.

The contract still has the "bizarre capitalisation of the writing of my name".
Today, I phoned npower to give them my latest meter readings and I hope Patrick will have amended this (my name) when he also changed the DD amount.
The proof will be in the post (when I next get a communication from npower).

Comment on the 25 page 'data stream' of text vs the "Standard terms for supplying ... October 2012"
In Post #73, on 23-Nov-2012, I documented that I had been sent 25 pages of text that was hard to understand.
The "Standard terms for supplying ... October 2012" is the same information.
However, this is much easier to understand because all of the paragraphs are numbered.
I can now see that e.g. Clause 38 has six sub-clauses (a-f) and "38 a" has seven sub-sub-clauses (i-vii).
This is how it should be: the 25 page 'data stream' of text which I was sent in November 2012 was IMHO 'not fit to send to a customer'.

Comment on experience with npower - so far
While I have always been treated politely on the phone it has been very time consuming to sort this.
I have stated, several times, that this should never of happened.

See also
Add your feedback on energy supplier Npower
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4415573

In Post #109 I used the metaphor of the iceberg.

Post #128 gives a Timeline for this mess.

In Post #134 we have Ofgem's very helpful official answer to my questions.

Thanks
I would like to thank:
1. The people who added their evidence. This showed that there was (and may be there still is) a systemic issue at npower.

2. The helpful posters who, while not directly affected, took time to try and help.
Many of theses posts are on the first two pages, Posts #1-#40, see also Post #135 where backfoot made a very encouraging post. TheSilentOne has also used their experience to assist.

3. The Energy Shop, who blogged about this:

npower application issues Nov 2012
Posted on November 20th 2012 in Famous last words
http://blog.theenergyshop.com/?p=492
Unlike npower, they tried to give accurate information to their Customers. They updated their blog four times.
npower, as documented in this thread, were wildly optimistic in their estimate as to how rapidly they could fix their own system.

4. Consumer Focus and Ofgem.
Apart from answering my Questions in Post #7 (and treating my initial report as an FOI request without having another delay) I don't know how much either of these organisations actually did. It was all 'behind the scenes'. However, one of the benefits of this thread (which has now had more than 9,600 views) is there is now evidence, in the public domain, as to what actually happened.

Indeed, my reason for making these posts has been to give both npower and the Regulator Ofgem some facts. I do hope that, in future, no Company ever introduces a 'new system' without testing it for all 'easily foreseen functions'.
Sending new Customers their Contract is an 'easily foreseen function'.

25.6_Pre-contract_oblig

chanz4

and guess what they would of done with it, filed under B for bin. What can you spam the forum about now

25.6_Pre-contract_oblig

As many readers of this thread will know, npower have been having systemic issues with their 'new system' and Ofgem are monitoring this thread.

An early symptom of the 'broken system' was their inability to send out Contracts.
Some Customers have now reported that they have received their Contract.
In my case, Post #179, instead of it coming in 5-6 days it came in 5-6 months!

Unfortunately, there are other issues.

Unexpected Direct Debit
TheSilentOne, who used to work for npower, said in Post #168 of this thread (on 07-02-2013):

"... It seems that this 'new system' is making yet another mistake. For an unknown number of customers accounts the Direct debit is not only taking out the monthly amount as normal but also taking out the full balance on the account. ..."

In Post #17 of the thread Npower doubled my direct debit we have an example of this.

On 23-03-2013 paulineb Posted: "... ... Ive found them to be reasonable enough when talking to them, oh, except when they went into my bank account and took the entire amount I owed them, which was about £180 in one sum without writing and telling me, I had to get the bank to reverse it and ask them if I could pay it up as I couldnt afford to pay it in one lump sum. I dont agree really with them putting your payments up over the winter although I can understand why they do it but given that people do burn less in the summer, bills should even themselves out over the year."

Unable to give Meter Readings online - until 17 April 2013
Then there are Posts about and new billing system not allowing Customers to give their Meter Readings online (until 17 April 2013).

npower billing system up the swanny
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4514303

This is also mentioned in Post #8 of the
Npower shocking service help please thread.

Customer Service
As npower are using a 'broken system' there are, naturally, many Posts about difficulty in contacting npower. See the thread linked in the paragraph above and

NPOWER Problems!!!!!!!
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4516119
for just two examples.

My recent experience, on Friday afternoon 22 March 2013, was that the Telephone queue was more than half an hour so I opted for a Call Back. After waiting for another hour, with no Call Back, I phoned and waited for about half an hour. I was able to give my readings. It took quite a while for Patrick to recalculate my DD. The 'system generated one' was too high (by £12 / month) which is 28% too high. He had to refer to his Supervisor to allow this override.

25.6_Pre-contract_oblig