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matt_outandabout

I think the email below sums things up. :mad:

Date: Sent 9th, 20th, 29th April and 6th of May 2015 - no reply as yet.

From: mattXXXXXXXXXXX@hotmail.com
To: paul.massara@rwenpower.com; executive.complaints@npower.com
Subject: Please help me leave nPower


Hello

I really need your help, as your call centre and executive complaints team are not able to help me.


My account number is XXXXXXXX, current address is XXXXXXXXXXXX.


We moved house in May 2014, and took nPower with us as dual supplier from our previous address (at XXXXXXXXXX), where we had been with you for a year.



In September 2014 we applied to leave nPower to EON.


In November 2014 we had not moved, and it became apparent that bills had been mixed up between the two addresses, and an additional direct debit set up for the new house, and so we were making two payments. This meant (without telling us) that nPower had refused the transfer to another supplier.



The electricity bill for the old property (significantly smaller than this one) remains high, however our comparison for the last 7 years was an all-electric house on storage heaters.


Through November and December, nPower managed to take over the supply of the old property we no longer lived in, and then hand it on to EON. This all had to be reversed. Twice.


Any complaints we had raised up until then were opened and closed the same day - without our agreement - as according to nPower they were 'resolved'. No they were not.


By the end of December we were finally able to leave nPower.


All this time we had been requesting our money back - we had been told in November that nPower had £500+ of our money held in credit. By February this had reduced to £350. By the time the refund was issued in March it was £250. All this time, since September, my access to the online account had been closed, so I could not check out the figures (and still cannot). It took months to get this repayment.


The same week we had a refund issued, we received an additional bill for £100 or so. This was followed less than a week later by a threatening letter for payment - despite taking months to refund me!


Since February, nPower have tried to re-take over our account again. Twice.

I am now 'stuck' with nPower as no-one can explain why the account keeps being pulled back as an erroneous transfer. I have been told variously it is EON sending the account back (impossible according to EON and Ombudsman), that the outstanding bill prevents it (which I have been told to ignore), that the on-going complaint prevents it, or as I still have an account at the old address (no I do not).


Your staff in the call centre all want me to speak to the executive complaints team. This team neither answer emails or call me back - over the seven months of issues, I have been called back three or four times only. They have not responded to emails - even to acknowledge their arrival.



I am now in a position where executive complaints don't call or respond to emails. Call handlers cannot action anything, or explain what is happening. You have no contract with me, no direct debit set up - I do not know even what terms or deal I am on!


According to to my latest call, you may even have the old house meter number attached to this account at the new property...back where we started in September.


I really, really want to leave nPower.


How am I to do this permanently, when you can 'reach in' to my new supplier and keep requesting me to return?

Also, please can we resolve what money I do or don't owe nPower, with some clear bills being sent or access to my online account back.



Regards


Mxxx Xxxxxxxx

rrtt

matt_outandabout wrote: »

I think the email below sums things up. :mad:

Date: Sent 9th, 20th, 29th April and 6th of May 2015 - no reply as yet.

Outrageous by them. Once the GE's over, I'd approach your new MP and ask them to contact nPower on your behalf; seems the utilities do pay MPs a bit of respect (hard to believe I know!)

Are you saying in effect that the ombudsman's toothless?

matt_outandabout

The ombudsman wants as much evidence as we can in writing. Sadly I contacted npower for months via phone, and only now have sent emails. Which they do not reply to.

It is not a case of toothless, more a case of needing more evidence than I had.

I will be following it up with ombudsman - but it is more hours out of my life to sort out...I have more important and positive things in life!

Old_Stanners

Since I first moved into my own house, I have always been with npower and I still am, sadly.

My tale of woe begins with our moving into a new house 3 years ago. Instead of sticking with the supplier for the house (EON), I stupidly decided to transfer my account to npower. Misplaced loyalty and the fact that they had genuinely been fine for the preceding decade. Oops.

The new house was electric only but I foresaw no problems as we had a couple of meters, one on a reduced rate, to sort out the underfloor heating (but we did not know that at the time).

When we moved, I was told that we would be on their best rate. This was a lie.

As time went on, I found out that we were on standard rate electricity for the main rate and a lower rate for the other. But what the other was, no-one seemed to know. No one could tell me when the rate applied, what it applied to or anything about it.

Then the bill for the first winter came. Despite us paying £150 per month by DD, we got a bill for £1000 - and it was correct.

We found out that we had an RHT meter that applied for 14 hours per day but only applied to the underfloor heating. The rate for this was slightly lower but the corollary was that we were stuck on standard rate for the main electricity that we had to use for hot water, cooking, etc.

It appeared that we had moved into a house that used too much energy for us to live in.

I contacted npower about reducing our bills. An advisor came around whose main concern seemed to be to advise us against getting solar. They told us how much each essential appliance cost us to use and left. Useless.

Our second winter there was cold and cheerless but we saved up and had enough to get gas central heating.

So, in March 2014, I began to contact npower to get the RHT meter removed in preparation for gas fitting in autumn. No one could help.

This is were the appalling nature of npower's "customer service", that has been so amply described in other posts, was shown to be true to me.

It took numerous phone calls and eventually complaints before they finally came to remove the meter in October. But the problems only began then.

They stopped my direct debits for over 6 months meaning that I am now in debt by some considerable amount. I too have letters saying that I have just moved home when I have not. I too have a stupidly complex series of transactions on my online account showing credits and debits which leaves it totally unclear as to what I owe on my account. I too have been promised return phonecalls from complaints departments which have not materialised.

The biggy for me is the LIES. You simply cannot trust a word any of the advisors say to you. They say that something has been done when it has not. My personal favourite is "Npower does not have a complaints department."

I have had phonecalls in which my DD amount has changed 4 times. I have had calls where they have refused to speak to me unless I gave them a meter reading (I submit them as soon as they ask, never refuse entry - my wife is in all day - and still get estimated bills) despite calling them on other issues.

The first line operators cannot help. If you have a need which is even slightly out of the ordinary then they are way out of their depth. I have had rude ones, sarky ones, one who said "Well, we are the only ones who support that type of meter so we'll charge you what you want". I spoke to a young lad who was almost in tears as he had someone on another line who would not speak to me and insisted that I directed my query through the poor young fellah.

And I have had the liars who said they could do it and did not.

Rarely, you get the good ones. They are experienced, polite, usually Geordies, who log your call and HELP.

In my experience, once you get them to acknowledge a complaint, two things happen. Firstly, you get a letter saying that they have solved it and that they will close the complaint in 10 days unless you contact them. My advise? Call them and tell them that you will not close it until it is definite that your complaint is sorted.

The second thing is that they will say "What can I do to get you to close this complaint today?" The correct thing to do is tell them. Tell them you want your meter removed, your DD sorted, whatever. And then, AND THIS IS THE KEY, do not close your complaint! Explain to them that they may SAY that it is done but you will have no evidence until you receive a bill/visit/etc and that you will not close the complaint until it happens. Make it clear that no matter what letters you receive, calls, etc, you will not close the complaint until you are happy. If you get a good one, they will put a note to that effect. I still have an open complaint and am delighted that their statistics show this.

When you have an open complaint, you get a different number to call. Now, this number is useless unless you have an open complaint. If you call it without an open complaint, you speak to a man who says that he is putting you through and you go to the standard frontline team.

You do not want this. The complaints team can help, the frontline team cannot.

Over the year and a bit that I have been dealing with them, I think that I can say that I have seen both improvements and steps backward.

Back in march 2014, they would put you through to another department (I got through to meter exchange and complex metering amongst others) but these days if you phone their main number you will speak to that person and that person only.

In summary, when dealing with npower:
1. Complain early in the process and do not close the complaint until you are satisfied, no matter what they sy.
2. Be prepared to put down the phone and call back if you get a bad adviser. They are generally better now but you get bad ones.
3. The main problem with npower is the inconsistency of their advisers. If you do not get the answer you want, call back until you get a good one. Don't waste time with a bad one.
4. Adopt an air of "I know you cant help, but..." They hate that and a good one is, in my experience, spurred on by your lack of confidence in them. :-)

We now have a gas supply, gas CH, solar panels and cavity wall insulation. We are on a dual fuel rate, backdated to the date of meter removal, and have cut our bills by about 75% so it is possible, with a lot of perseverence, to get satisfaction from npower.

Good Luck!

rrtt

matt_outandabout wrote: »

The ombudsman wants as much evidence as we can in writing. Sadly I contacted npower for months via phone, and only now have sent emails. Which they do not reply to.

It is not a case of toothless, more a case of needing more evidence than I had.

I will be following it up with ombudsman - but it is more hours out of my life to sort out...I have more important and positive things in life!

That's the trouble with stuff like this - we consumers are rarely if ever compensated for the hours/days of our lives we waste on it, and the stress it causes. Fingers crossed for you!

rrtt

Well done and hat off to you Old Stanners!! And I'm sure that advice will be extremely useful to others.

Old_Stanners

Has anyone noticed that the npower representative has been conspicuous by their absence on this thread?

This is, I think, page 14, in a thread started over 2 years ago. It details horrendous customer service from a company ranked dead last in the list of UK energy suppliers and yet the last contribution from their "official rep" was on 4/7/2013.

Shows what they think of us.

If I wanted to improve the tarnished image of a company, I would spend a couple of quid on someone to monitor boards like this one and sort out the issues thereon. You'd be addressing vocal customers with big complaints - also the ones most likely to complain and kick up a fuss.

With those complaints sorted, your image would undoubtedly improve.

What do npower do?

Spend money on Omid Djalili and David Schneider in an appalling TV advert to try to persuade us that npower customer service is not atrocious.

(Lest we forget, David Schneider, the director of the current TV ads, was one of the comedians who commented upon npower's price rise on twitter. Only a cynic could find any link there.)

But there are links below showing the truth of my words. Unless of, course, there are two comedians called David Schneider.

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-10-21/comedians-react-to-npower-10-4-price-increase/

http://www.2amfilms.co.uk/campaign-npower-standing-up-for-customers-by-mccann-manchester/

rrtt

Old_Stanners wrote: »

Has anyone noticed that the npower representative has been conspicuous by their absence on this thread?

This is, I think, page 14, in a thread started over 2 years ago. It details horrendous customer service from a company ranked dead last in the list of UK energy suppliers and yet the last contribution from their "official rep" was on 4/7/2013.

Shows what they think of us.

If I wanted to improve the tarnished image of a company, I would spend a couple of quid on someone to monitor boards like this one and sort out the issues thereon. You'd be addressing vocal customers with big complaints - also the ones most likely to complain and kick up a fuss.

With those complaints sorted, your image would undoubtedly improve.

What do npower do?

Spend money on Omid Djalili and David Schneider in an appalling TV advert to try to persuade us that npower customer service is not atrocious.

(Lest we forget, David Schneider, the director of the current TV ads, was one of the comedians who commented upon npower's price rise on twitter. Only a cynic could find any link there.)

But there are links below showing the truth of my words. Unless of, course, there are two comedians called David Schneider.

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-10-21/comedians-react-to-npower-10-4-price-increase/

http://www.2amfilms.co.uk/campaign-npower-standing-up-for-customers-by-mccann-manchester/

Well spotted - astute points Old Stanners. You know what, if they were really on the ball and keen to address/redress their numerous problems, they'd make you a job offer!! But I'm not holding my breath, it's way too sensible a move for them

dollydiva

I look after my Mum's npower account. I switched her via the Cheap Energy Club in May 2014 and have been trying to pay npower MORE money than the £17 they initially set Mum's monthly payment at.

In the past year sent emails, online messages, Live Chat and emails to their complaint address telling them Mum wanted to pay £44 a month as she had with EDF which covers her bills easily. When I did get a reply from the Complaints Dept, they REDUCED payments to £12 :mad:
It was as if all the emails and Live Chat and online messages I'd sent had never existed and that they hadn't even read the current one.

At Christmas, Mum's Winter Fuel Allowance cleared up the debt on the Account - but I was still sending emails to the Complaints address begging them to pay £44 a month from £12.

When I got no reply - and I only ever got 6 replies to over 18 contacts made over the time - I once again went on Live Chat. I thought this time the Agent was really going to help! She said that the Gas payment had not been activated on the Account and this was the reason for the error and agreed to increase the amount to £44. Hooray!

Except she increased it to £69 a month, which Mum can't afford being on Income Support. Then the winter bill landed and she owed £210: in debt for the first time at age 89 - Bravo, npower.

Sent npower a final email saying if no reply 7 days, off to Ombudsman, which we did about 10 days ago. Yesterday, they rang Mum (even though I asked them to call me as Mum is hard of hearing!) to offer £75 Compensation. But I'd asked for half the debt (£105)as it seemed a fair thing to ask for as they are at least half responsible for the situation. Besides which, we have spent an awful lot of time and effort to pay MORE, which they have ignored.:mad:

Waiting on their reply at the moment...on the assumption it arrives, but not holding out much hope as the other contact has been so poor. But at least the Ombudsman is now on board.

MABLE

Very pleased with N Power for my gas. Pay qty and no hassle then with monthly direct debits. Brilliant service because I am in control.