Powergen

ysoskint

Powergen kindly reviewed my Gas and Electric today and informed me i've been paying far too low and I now have to pay £221 a month. My pervious direct debit was £25, (on their advice). Anyway I'm stunned and not in the best mood at the moment.

I was informed that if i don't make the repayment they will put me on a meter. I probably can up the payments to about £100 a month but I really don't want to go on to a meter.

What rights do I have? I could stretch to pay £100 a month. I have returned to full time work recently and my budget is hugely tight!

Any advice on my rights would be great.

Cardew

I don't think it is a question of your 'rights'.

Technically you have received the gas/electricity, have an outstanding debit balance and are required to pay that debt.

Do you know how much you are in debt?

In practice Powergen have some moral responsibility in letting a large debit balance accrue, as indeed you have for allowing a debt to build up.

£25 a month(£300pa) when the average household spends approx £1,000pa should have sent warnings to both parties. However call centre/comparison site staff will pitch the DD at stupidly low levels in order to get you to swop and hence they get their commission.

Powergen have a interest in getting the debt repaid as quickly as possible, but they have flexibility in how long this will take.

A normal rule for guidance is that if, say, the debt accrued over 12 months, they will allow 12 months for the debt to be paid off.

It really is a matter of you making an offer of a sum and then negotiating with them. Depending how long the debt took to build up, you should bear in mind that the correct level of your DD could be £80 a month if you are an average user, so at £100 you would be paying little off your debt.

Having a pre-pay meter will not help as you will pay a higher tariff and it will be set to repay your debt anyway.

If you cannot come to an agreement with them, I would borrow the money and pay them off rather than have a pre-pay meter - It will be cheaper in the long run.

TheWaltons_3

WOW!

And I thought we were being badly done to by Powergen - they upped our bill from £32 to £67!

I rang up and got unhelpful callcentre staff - I did explain I wasn't quibbling over the bill, just wanted to change DD for it to come out of a different account... anyway.. I gave her a meter reading and she told me they were billing me too much for the estimate.. then the battery died on my phone... so I rang back.. and the second girl I spoke to said I wasn't being billed enough.. and upped it again....


OOOPS!!! We're not with Powergen... we're with NPOWER! :rotfl: