Mail's Peter Campbell: Is Npower about to leave UK?

MillicentBystander

Interesting article and I do think he raises some pertinent points. Should it happen, at the risk of being labeled a jingoist , it would be nice if a British buyer could be found. Or, in my wildest dreams, perhaps the Govt should ask all the other suppliers if they wished to sell up as well, scrap the ridiculous white elephant that is HS2 and use the money saved for something useful for a change...:D

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2513906/As-owner-axes-investment-jobs-Npower-leaving-UK.html

undercover_peon

I like the idea I keep seeing in comments on daily mail articles about power companies - have one government back or owned company to act as a challenger to the others. I'm not sure if there are any rules prohibiting this, but I would hope it is ok as EDF is owned by the french government...

At least we would then have some resolution to the debate about whether or not customers are being ripped off.

BTW generation is making around 20% profits can anything be done about that? I suppose the companies have a duty to make as much money as they can. I know they can't cross subsidize but 20% is a lot of anyone's money...

vm2pensioner

Still, might soon be easier to contact...? (Don't bank on it).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10477681/Npower-to-outsource-call-centres-and-axe-1500-jobs.html

MillicentBystander

vm2pensioner wrote: »

Still, might soon be easier to contact...? (Don't bank on it).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10477681/Npower-to-outsource-call-centres-and-axe-1500-jobs.html

One of the responses to that article:

tinker

I used to work for one of Npower's 'big six' competitors. They did the same thing as this about 12 years ago. It was a disaster - the management went against all the advice of the customer services staff and not only sent jobs to India, but also sent the most complicated work there as well - prepayment accounts for example are notoriously challenging, but this is one of the things they sent over.
I did home visits and experienced the absolute lunacy of speaking to india about a prepayment meter. The guy didn't understand me and kept reading from a script. He didn't even understand I was a colleague. Because I had come through on an external number he kept telling me "my account was correct".
In the end, a change of directorship corrected the error and the jobs were brought back to the UK. That was over five years ago now. I can't believe Npower are so behind the curve with this one.

undaunted

The idea may have appeal but unfortunately can't see it actually happening

macman

If 'jingoism' has it's way, then presumably EDF will be stopped from building Hinkley Point 3 and 4, along with the Chinese state providing most of the finance in return for a 40% share?
I don't really care who owns the generating and distribution hardware as long as it actually gets built and maintained. If that means Chinese cash and French ownership, then so be it.
Once the power cuts start in five years or so, I doubt that we'll then be having a moan about which suppliers are British and which are foreign?