MSE News: Npower to pay £1m after customer complaints soar

Nada666

lea2001gb wrote: »

Seriously???

[blah blah blah]

I cannot pay on 2 accounts for the same thing!!!

You did not state there was anything incorrect about their demands in your original post (#47). Read it again and see how misleading it is.

lea2001gb

Nada666 wrote: »

You did not state there was anything incorrect about their demands in your original post. Read it again and see how misleading it is.

It isn't misleading, just some people like to attempt to cause arguements when they do not know the facts. You did not know the entire facts so you assumed, therefore caused me to respond. I will know be taking my request elsewhere as it would appear that I have come to the Npower fan club!!

Nada666

lea2001gb wrote: »

it would appear that I have come to the Npower fan club!!

:rotfl:Water off my back but I suspect Richie may be a little upset by that.

Richie-from-the-Boro

lea2001gb wrote: »

It isn't misleading, just some people like to attempt to cause arguments when they do not know the facts. You did not know the entire facts so you assumed, therefore caused me to respond. I will know be taking my request elsewhere as it would appear that I have come to the Npower fan club!!

We respond to facts given, when all the pertinent facts surrounding a situation are not given however you get what in this case you properly got .... an ill-informed response. You should take your claim to the small claims court, and quickly. Regardless of the tub thumping anger you are getting angry not getting even. Everyone knows nPower are useless, everyone knows OFGEM's complaint system in useless. Posting here and elsewher will not stop nPowers useless debt collectors clocking up £housands of extra costs against you each time the ring write or call. Each week you do nothing the debt collectors rub their hands.

Telling those of us here that you will ""sue nPower and or take them to court for harassment and phone call charges"" will do nothing to stop this happening, stop the talk, walk the walk, get a legal judgement on proportion of blame and use that judgement to re-establish a working relationship with nPower or go to a different supplier without prejudice.

lstar337

lea2001gb wrote: »

It isn't misleading, just some people like to attempt to cause arguements when they do not know the facts.

If you want an informed response, is it not your job to supply the facts?

lea2001gb wrote: »

You did not know the entire facts so you assumed

What else would you have wanted them to do, stroll on by?

I think you need to accept a little responsibility here. Remember that nobody on this forum is being paid to help others, they do it off their own back!

exiled_taff

I've had a couple of communications with NPower since my last post.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to seek a resolution to my current account situation. After nearly 18 months you have still to resolve the situation with this account that I feel is completely at the fault of NPower.

Currently I am faced with a bill for £1452.40 (as attached). I contest the amount on this bill as follows.

NPower have signed up to a code of practice that declares that an account will not be charged for energy used during a period in excess of 12 months when the failure is not the fault of the account holder. I ask that you do not charge me for the period between 3rd December 2012 and 27th January 2013.

In addition, I was expecting to receive a debit of £100 on this account. This has not been applied.

When eventually my bills arrived, I have been penalised at a more expensive tarriff. Please see the attached chart that shows for some inexplicable reason I am being charged 80% more for gas during the winter 2013/14, than the winter 2012/13. However the average air temperature during the most recent winter was considerably warmer than last year. This I am assuming is a correction of my actual reading against the estimated reading. However in the preceeding 12 months I have not been asked to provide a reading, and if I was to provide one, what worth would it have been, seeing as I've only received 3 bills in a 16 month period?

The account was originally set-up to pay monthly by direct debit, and my expectation was a monthly payment of £120. I have already paid in excess of £700 for gas bills received in 2013. I am now expected to pay £1400 for the bill received in February. What I am expected to pay is equivalent to a 15% increase.

During numerous telephone conversations, of which I am informed each time I call, you record for training purposes, I have raised the point that by not providing me with a bill I am unable to check and compare your tarriffs with competitors and this is anti-competitive and unfair. During the period of not receiving a bill I have been subjected to two price rises of which I am unable to affect any response as I am still in a state of limbo as to the true cost of my current energy bill.

I have never received a contract of supply detailing the costs I was expected to pay. I have not been given an opportunity to change tarriffs and I have not received a good level of service. I wish to cease being a customer of NPower at the earliest opportunity. In order that we resolve this quickly I offer to pay £740 which is equivalent to 7 months of direct debit as originally agreed, less the £100 debit promised.

NPower, once again the ball is in your court to resolve your problems.

and more recently (today)

Thank you for your letter and attempts to contact me, I have not had any missed calls or voice mail messages. Perhaps you have a wrong telephone number against my account. I have seen that some amendments have been made to the bill, but to be honest I can't fathom it out. Your bills are very complicated, especially when dealing with price rises across a 16 month period. You tell me you have cancelled bills I have already paid, but I haven't received any credits to my bank account. What does this mean?

Today I've received you publicity leaflet in the post telling me all about the business's big plans this year and how you plan to save me money. Unfortunately it is too late to be sending me such rubbish. Your business has had 16 months to get my account sorted. I've been patient but I have now instructed a competitor to supply my energy. I'm hopeful that you will be able to co-operate and allow the switch to happen in a timely manner so that I can begin to manage my domestic charges in the manner I had expected to from December 2012.

I have made a goodwill gesture payment of £720. A sum that I suggested I would pay in my last email to you. I fail to see where NPower have moved on any of the points I raised in my previous email, and I will not accept imposed price increases during a period when you as a business failed to bill me.

As I explained to one of your colleagues during one of my many calls to you last year; you may have used the recording for training purposes. What NPower have chosen to do, yes chosen; you have blamed your computer systems, but is it beyond the wit of any employee or manager at NPower to call their customers and ask them to submit a meter reading, then with the data supplied, use a calculator (if needed), and create and print out an invoice on a word or excel template?

Yes, what NPower have chosen to do is to maintain my account in a state of limbo and during this period imposed two unjustified price increases which is completely uncompetitive. Your colleague will have heard me say this, they may even have made a written note of me saying this, you may even be able to hear me say this on the recorded call that I made to your team, to try and resolve your problems.

If you wish to reconsider your bill, perhaps by not including charges for a period of time in excess of 12 months from the date I first received a bill for dual fuel, (an action that contravenes NPower's pledge in the "Code of Practice for Accurate Bills Back Billing for Domestic Customers") and only at the costs initially charged at the time the account was set up I may consider paying any remaining balance you feel is justified on the account.

I also wish to add to the points above, which were made in my previous email to the complaints team. I feel that I was miss-sold this tariff. I originally expected it to be a fixed tariff until January 2014. I never received the full terms and conditions from NPower. If you believe they were sent please demonstrate this. It is widely reported that NPower have used this tariff and the campaign in use at the time of my application, as a way of over-inflating price increases during the period of the tariff. Your letter notifying me of the increase was pointless as you failed to bill me before the increase. Therefore how could I then compare the costs paid, the future costs, any "opt out" cost or other options with your competitors?

Ms xxxxxxx, you may now get the gist of this message. In over 16 months I have not received any communication from Npower to apologise for the failings of the business, and/or to discuss a way of resolving your problem. I have not received a telephone call to say how sorry you are, how can you help me pay off the debt that you have created, perhaps even offering payment terms to manage the repayment in a controlled process. Your £20 shopping tokens are a small gesture in the grand scheme of things, considering you are asking me to pay over £600 more than I was expecting to pay when I signed up to the dual fuel monthly direct debit plan that you failed to set up correctly, its miserly. As a business you have failed miserably in your basic responsibility to manage my account, your customer service has been non-existent and in no way have you been proactive in trying to resolve the account issues. I have however made regular calls to your team to try and resolve the problem. I paid the two gas only bills that were sent. I only want to pay you for the energy you supply on time. However, you have made this impossible for me.

I look forward to the day when I never have to deal with NPower again.

KellieBear

Hi all
I cannot help but wonder how NPower are getting away with this!
I have been a customer for 18 years. Never missed a payment and always put my monthly direct debit up when advised.
They wrote to me at the beginning of the year to say that they were putting my monthly payments up from £142 to £444!!! Like that was going to be acceptable.
When I asked them to look in to it they admitted that due to their new billing system they had 'forgotten' to bill me for 14 months! They had also not been monitoring my meter readings against my useage - I am now left with a bill of £1,666.19 and no way of paying it.
It now means that me and my husband cannot take our kids away on holiday this year! They have offered to knock some money off, and allow me to pay the rest interest free over 3 years but I said if I wanted to get in to debt it would be for something material like a car!
I am so disgusted with NPower and they don't seem to care at all - even though they admit it is their fault!
Kellie

lstar337

KellieBear wrote: »

Hi all
I cannot help but wonder how NPower are getting away with this!
I have been a customer for 18 years. Never missed a payment and always put my monthly direct debit up when advised.
They wrote to me at the beginning of the year to say that they were putting my monthly payments up from £142 to £444!!! Like that was going to be acceptable.
When I asked them to look in to it they admitted that due to their new billing system they had 'forgotten' to bill me for 14 months! They had also not been monitoring my meter readings against my useage - I am now left with a bill of £1,666.19 and no way of paying it.

I look at my bank balance almost daily, how often do you look at yours?

Don't get me wrong I am no fan of NPower, but didn't you notice that you had 14 months with an extra £142 in your bank?

KellieBear wrote: »

It now means that me and my husband cannot take our kids away on holiday this year!

Um, if you had been paying the bill for the last 14 months, then you wouldn't have the money to go on holiday either!

KellieBear wrote: »

They have offered to knock some money off, and allow me to pay the rest interest free over 3 years

That's pretty good of them. I had to pay all of my bills, so I guess you are getting a better deal than me and all the other people that bothered to keep an eye on their income and outgoings.

KellieBear wrote: »

I am so disgusted with NPower and they don't seem to care at all - even though they admit it is their fault!

I would say 'partially' their fault.