Add your feedback on energy supplier Npower

kuepper

You can never get through on the phone and they don't answer emails, once theyve got your a/c they don't care. I'm gonna switch to coop

Clicker

NPower has made the last 5 months hell. We feel we are going mad.
Originally had elec. in my name, gas in wife's. We changed to dual fuel, D.D., fixed tariff in my wife's name in October with new acc. no.. Many calls and e-mails later and lots of understanding, 'helpful' Npower staff, assuring us it should be sorted now........and still the bills arrive for my closed single account. Nothing in the new dual fuel account. And now they are billing me BOTH with old account at old higher tariff. Needless to say, we're switching, even if it costs more.
DON'T GO NEAR THEM! I did ask them if they'd read Kafka.......Yes, I know we're not out yet.

MallyGirl

npower told me that they now only read meters themselves every 2 years and use customer readings for the 6 monthly bills.
I submit monthly readings now as my DD were fluctuating wildly. Their new website shows your forecast energy usage for the coming year - they predict I will use 251% more fuel this July than last and I cannot seem to get this changed.

In the end the call centre person worked out an annual bill using the last 6 months customer readings and manually overrode the DD - made it £180pcm instead or £380pcm! Totally rubbish but I am in a fixed contract till Oct 14.

NestorMakhno

npower kept putting my mother's direct debit up until she was £850 in credit at the start of summer. They ignored three requests to change the direct debit amount. It took 7 months to get what was left in her account refunded while various random amounts came out and some went back in. They set up my account then cancelled it when my evil brother told them to allthough there was no way he could have given them my security details. They left the direct debit in place and though they didn't take any money, that was the only way I found out what had happened. When I set up the account again they failed to set up a direct debit (this was well after I cancelled the previous one) - twice. They've never sent me a contract despite asking. They rarely answer an enquiry from me via their website. Half the time they don't reply to a complaint via their complaints form. When they do respond it takes at least a week and they don't always answer my questions when they do. It takes them a week to prepare a bill after I send them a meter reading (once a month) but they haven't created one on the last three occasions. Their meter reader has twice turned up two weeks before he was expected and when I wasn't in the second time he did not turn-up on the day he said he would return. I got no response to my complaint and he has never returned. Their predicted usage calculation has improved slightly but is still ridiculously excessive and they wouldn't set up a direct debit unless I agreed to it. I think that's actually illegal. The date they create a bill on the occasions that they do, changes to earlier in the month without them telling me. A few times I have unexpectedly received a bill after or only a day or two before the the date that it said it had to be paid. Their website is often down at the weekend and always slow to load. I would certainly not consider recommending them in any way whatsoever. I also very much object to paying a standing charge. I can't be the only person who uses little or none of one fuel during summer.

Judith_Proctor

I switched to NPower a couple of months ago, and was surprised to get a letter complaining that I hadn't set up a direct debit.

I phoned to sort this out and the man on the phone let slip that they'd had computer problems that had lost a lot of direct debits.
He set up a new direct debit for me.

A couple of weeks later, I got another letter demanding that I set up a direct debit.

I phoned up to set up a new direct debit, but frankly, I've had enough of NPower and their crap customer service and I'm going to switch to a green energy company.

Notaclue_2

I switched to Npower November 2012. My electric went through with no problem. But my Gas, well that another story. It is stuck in the specialised complaints dept. It has been 1year and 4months and still it hasnt been sorted out. EDF sent me a final letter in Oct 2013. Since then ive paid no gas payment because Npower can not access my account even though they know i am being supplied by them. Im worried about the bill when it finally comes through. i have contacted them 16 times, All they say is, its in the complaints dept and they will contact me when resolved.

SCRIBES

My recent letter to them:
To date I have not had a reply to my letter of complaint posted to you 3 March 2014. You haven’t explained why it has taken so long to issue a final invoice and why my account hasn’t been rectified. I have therefore contacted the Energy Ombudsman reference “ WEBENER122808C” and have asked them to intervene and deal with the matter.

Your customer service is an absolute disgrace and the way you have dealt with this matter is utterly unacceptable. You are clearly not abiding by the advert that you placed earlier this year and have a long way to go to satisfy your customers. Making false promises is not the way to go. Taking on an extra 800 staff clearly hasn’t resolved the problem. It seems to me the problem is with your management and it needs to be addressed quickly! How difficult is it to write a letter and inform your customers that their complaints are being dealt with and give a timescale when they might be resolved?

Perhaps you might consider replying to me with a suitable explanation why you didn’t respond to my initial letter?

lozzark

I moved from nPower to First Utility nPower Nov 2013. I complained that they had not given me a final bill about 5 times. Eventually nPower gave me a final bill which was around £70 in credit (which they refunded via the bank) and sent £20 by way of compensation. After reading this thread I reckon I came off lightly.
I switched to First Utility because their deal was better and the gov keeps saying to reduce your bills switch energy supplier.
I'd only been with First Utility for less than 3 months and they notified me that a gov body had instructed them to reduce the number of their different tariffs to make it easier for customers. Well they ended up with one (unless you fixed for one year or more) and if you think about it, it was never going to end up with the cheapest tariff. So my energy bills were going up again. Thanks gov. So I found a cheaper deal with OVO and I'm in the middle of switching to them. I've given my meter reads to both parties, but OVO have not yet set up a DD and First Utility have not given me a final bill, despite their web site saying they only take 24 hrs to produce one. Here we go again.
I'll have to see what happens, but on the 21st March First Utility took £137 DD and OVO say they will take £140 on the 28th. March. when they start supplying me. When the First Utility send me my final bill, I'll owe £250 or more (because it's the end of the winter I owe them). That means I'll have to stump up a total of £527 in one month. Even though I'm going to save in the long run, that is hellova an amount to pay in one month (nearly 4 times expected rate). It struck me that many others may not be able to switch because they can't transfer their debt to the next energy supplier. So when gov say switch supplier to save money - it just ain't that easy.
Another nuisance is that when you switch suppliers, you lose all the online records & graphs about energy consumption. It makes tracking use that much more difficult. Keeping records for you would be a really good service for Uswitch to provide.

Gambler

I phoned up last month to change my bank details. (which took a number of phone calls and endless queues)

Have received an email today to say that they couldn't collect my payment as there is no direct debit instruction on my account. Surely they should set that up?

The email also said that I have broken the terms of my contract (fix price April 2015) and will be moved to a more expensive tariff.

I can't be bothered with more queues so I'm switching.

It took me 5 minutes to go online and change dd details for BT and tescomobile.

Complete joke of a company.

janetn_2

No Power is better than Npower

What a shambles 3 months to switch electric and almost 4 months for gas.
Now although I am using less energy my bills have MORE THAN DOUBLED from £107 per month to £234.
In 3 months I am in debt by £167 already.
Now trying to get back to my old supplier I know the fixed rate doesn't last as long but it will still be cheaper in the end. Wish I had never moved.
Just spent 47 minutes on the phone waiting for NPower to answer then was told it wasn't the bills department I needed it was the energy efficient department