N Power - What would you do?

Simon7685

I have been having a battle with N Power regarding my Mothers account since December 2012 when they wanted to increase her payments from £35 to £43 a month.

This hike was completely unecessary and according to my calculations £27 a month was enough to cover her usage. In fact I have gone back to 2007 on her bills and her average use has never been over £30 a month.

Anyway after a heated discussion with N Power in Dec 2012, I got them to agree to a payment of £30 a month, although I advised them that this would still mean she was building a credit balance over the course of the year and when added to the WHD she would end up with around £300 credit on the account by December 2013.

Naturally they disputed this and said that while they agreed to £30 a month, they would be checking again in 6 months to make sure she was not getting into debt, I did not have an issue with that and assured them that if my calculations were wrong and she owed them any money, she would pay in full.

The review they promised never happened, unsurprisingly. Now here we are in January 2014 and she has not even had a bill from them since an estimated one that went up to February 2013. The last bill on actual readings was December 2012.

I have kept a check on her account and continued to work out her bills to make sure she was paying enough and she was overpaying as I initially thought.

I rang them on 03/12/2013 after setting up the account online to submit up to date readings. The new computer system does not accept her tariff, so readings can't be put in online. (What a lot of use that is!)

So I gave them readings and said she wanted a bill as I believed her account was around £220 in credit as of 30/11/13. They said the new computer system didn't recognise her tariff and her bills had to be done manually, which was why she hadn't had one:mad:. A bill would now be requested and it would take up to 28 days for it to be produced:eek:.....

Reluctantly I accepted this, although I did point out that as she was a pensioner (82) I thought the way they had been operating by not sending her bills and reviewing her payments was completely unacceptable.

On 03 January there was still no bill, her online account now showed a credit balance of £631.49 as they had taken another 2 payments and credited this years WHD. I took fresh readings and worked out her bill for the period Feb 13 to Jan 14. Her outstanding charges to come off the credit balance are £244.42 (My calculations are accurate). So that leaves her with a credit balance on her account of £387.07.

On top of this her account is due to be credited with £25 relating to N Powers OFGEM fine and a one off DD Discount of about £28, as they have changed the way they are doing it now. So that will bring her potential credit balance to £440.07 after her account is made up to date with outstanding charges.

So I got back on the phone to see where this manual bill was? they could not tell me, it hadn't been done. I instigated a complaint and was told someone from the complaints team would contact me within 5 working days. I advised them that if this was not sorted out the DD would be cancelled as my Mother was not going to be paying another penny until they sorted her account out.

The 5 days came and went and no bill and no contact. On 10/01/14 I was again back on the phone. To get yet more excuses and apologies and also to be told that the complaint that was supposedly put in on 03/01 had not been put in after all, hence no contact from the complaints department.

However this particulare asked if I would hold and he would try to find out what was going on, so I agreed. 30 minutes later he came back full of yet more apologies and said the readings I gave them at the start of December had been passed through for a manual bill to be generated but nobody had bothered to do it and they were going to look into that as it was not acceptable. Your telling me!

So the upshot was he had processed the complaint and I would this time get a call from the team within 5 days. He also said that the team had said they would have a resolution to the complaint by 21 January.

Reluctantly I agreed to take him at his word and wait for the phone call.

Erm that would be the phone call that never happened again, the manual bill that still has not come and the compaint that hasn't been resolved by 21st January.

During the last 10 days I have done a lot of work of getting all my Mothers bills calculated out using my own spreadsheet and they agree with the N Power ones, hence I know my figures are 100% correct.

I would like to know what other action I can take apart from cancelling the DD, which I will be doing. I am not going to allow her to pay any more money to N Power until they bring her account up to date.

Curiously her actual energy used for Dec 2012 to Dec 2013 is £311.04 or £25.92 a month, which is not far away from the £27 I estimated a year ago. Of course her payments did not take the WHD into account, which is part of the reason she has got so far ahead of herself.

The bottom line at the moment is she is over a full years worth of energy in credit on her account and this cannot continue. The more important thing though is what can be done regards N Power?

They have not produced a bill for 12 months, they have not reviewed her payments, they have failed to comply with their own complaints procedure and it would appear don't give a toss! They know that she is so far in credit that she doesn't owe them anything and I believe that because of this they have no urgency in wanting to resolve the problem.

Any ideas before I ring them again?

Consumerist

Start npower's formal complaints procedure, preferably in writing. Head the letter with the word Complaint in bold; npower apparently has a habit of regarding complaints as just enquiries. If you want to start their complaints procedure by telephone, it is important you insist on being given a complaints reference number.

If your complaint is not resolved after 8 weeks you can refer it to the Ombudsman Services: Energy.

It may not be a good idea to cancel the DD because it may lead to npower moving you to a more expensive tariff - one which does not require a DD; it depends on the Ts&Cs associated with your tariff.

Simon7685

Thanks for the advice, it is appreciated, I will check the T & C's but I am pretty sure that payment by quarterly billing is ok.

Mallotum_X

They put a new computer system in and everything has been a mess since. When you log in online they have a message about this. I changed tariff in October 2013 and still not showing as changed.

As an aside looking at value of bills in 2007 isnt really much use as prices have gone up a lot since then. Just check historic usage.

Im currently overpaying by my own calcs but id prefer to over than underpay and it will come out in the wash.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Stop phoning, it's generally a waste of time.

As above, start the complaints procedure by writing. It then becomes a waiting game for 8 weeks.

Personally, I would just leave them for someone that can manage to bill their customers correctly.

Nada666

Although frustrating I would not cut off your nose and stop paying by direct debit. If her usage is just £300 per year then no other supplier is likely to be as cheap after direct debit discount. (Of course, you should check this.)

The Warm Home Discount should not be taken into account when calculating the monthly payment.

But, as mentioned, don't telephone. Just make a complaint in writing asking for the balance.

Simon7685

I beg to differ on taking the WHD into account when calculating monthly payments, it is essentially them not having regard to it that has in part caused the problem now.
Last year = 130
This Year = 135 Totalling £265 Current credit position = £387
If the WHD is not taken into account then her payments would need to be set at £311/12 = £25.91 a month to cover her use.
She would then still be left with the amount of the WHD as a credit on her account. As that is WHD money she cannot have a refund as that is not allowed. So the problem would just continue to spiral upwards.

As it stands as of 03/01 she is over a full years worth of use in credit. So she could make no payments for the next 12 months, assuming the same amount of use would leave it as follows;

Current Position = £387 credit
12 months use = £311 + a buffer of £40 = £351

Position in 12 months = 387 - 351 = 36.00 credit
WHD will be applied in Dec 2014 = 140.00
= £176 credit having made no payments for 12 months.

The big problem is the fact they have not billed her for 12 months and do not seem to care, probably because they know fine well she is so far in credit. However that cannot be right, are they not breaching some sort of law somewhere by not billing her or reviewing her payments?

Simon7685

I looked at moving her supplier over a year ago, however because she has this archaic meter for this Super Tariff she is on it needs to be changed. I approached 2 suppliers who both said they would not accept a switch without the meter being changed but they were not prepared to change it. They said it was down to N Power to change it.

I am going to look into having the meter changed at her cost if I have to but first I want to see if I can't get N Power to change it. On the grounds that their meter is preventing her from switching supplier. However I do not expect to get anywhere with that!

chanz4

Simon7685 wrote: »

I looked at moving her supplier over a year ago, however because she has this archaic meter for this Super Tariff she is on it needs to be changed. I approached 2 suppliers who both said they would not accept a switch without the meter being changed but they were not prepared to change it. They said it was down to N Power to change it.

I am going to look into having the meter changed at her cost if I have to but first I want to see if I can't get N Power to change it. On the grounds that their meter is preventing her from switching supplier. However I do not expect to get anywhere with that!

Its not so easy, and only your supplier can request the change. Think this will be the reason also why they can bill, and another reason why most suppliers dont want your business

silverwhistle

Simon7685 wrote: »

The big problem is the fact they have not billed her for 12 months and do not seem to care, probably because they know fine well she is so far in credit.

Ha! The conspiracy theory of life. With Npower it's definitely the !!!!-up theory that applies. I haven't had a bill for 5 months, and then a letter saying they wanted to increase the amount they took from my prepayment meter. I've had credit meters for 5 months, and I'm on a pay-when-you-get-the-bill tariff...

Simon7685

Today is D Day for N Power..........
When I last spoke to them on 10 January when I was advised that a first stage complaint had been raised, although I was not given a reference number. This followed on from the call of 03 Jan when I had been told the same.

Anyway according to the call of 10 Jan a resolution would be reached by 21 January, well that date has now passed. I was promised a call within 5 days which also hasn't happened.

I am in the process of detailing everything into a written complaint which will be submitted hopefully today. I originally asked for a bill on 03 December 2013. At that time they said a manual bill would be raised and produced within 28 days. So I am taking that date as the original date of the complaint. They should have the calls I have made recorded to refer back to as well as notes on their systems.

The simple facts of the case are as follows;

1. In December 2012 they agreed to cancel the payment increase and reduce future payments to £30 a month. They implemented this from March 2013. They also said the account would be checked after 6 months to ensure the reduced payments were covering the usage. This never happened.

2. No bill has been produced since an estimated one in March 2013 which had the account as £116 in credit.

3. I set up online access to the account on 30 Nov 2013 in order to submit accurate readings. The system would not accept the readings.

4. I rang them on 03 December 2013 and submitted the readings, I was advised the new computer did not recognise the tariff as it was an old one. A manual bill would need to be produced and this would take up to 28 days.

I advised at this time that this was unacceptable, the account was around £330 in credit after the outstanding charges according to my calculations. My Mother is a vulnerable customer of 82 years old and they were taking money from her every month that was not necessary. They have a duty of care to their customers and not sending someone a bill for 10 months is not good enough.

5. I contacted them again on 03 January as no bill had been received, her account was showing as £631.49 in credit with £217.64 in charges outstanding for the period to 30/11/13 which they had the readings for. This left the account £413.85 in credit.

This was in excess of 12 months worth of charges in credit.

I was advised that a compalaint had been opened and I would be contacted within 5 working days. I advised that if I wasn't I would be cancelling the DD and looking at what other avenues were open to me to resolve the issue.

6. I contacted them on 10 Jan 14 as I had not had the call that had been promised and still no bill either. I was told that the complaint from 03 Jan had not been submitted and it appeared that the meter readings from 30/11/13 had been passed through but no bill had been made up.

The person I spoke to assured me that a complaint had now been submitted, I would receive a call within 5 days and that they expected a resolution on the account by the end of 21 Jan 14. I agreed at this point not to cancel the DD as no further payment was due to be taken until 02 February.

I advised that I had taken further readings up to 03 January 14 and according to my calculations the account is £387.07 in credit up to that date. In addition to this there was a £25 credit to be added for the OFGEM fine (he agreed) also around £28 for the DD Discount one off payment they had detailed in a letter relating to the change in implementing the DD discount (he agreed).

Taking all that into consideration the account would be £440.07 in credit as of 03 January 2014. The annual usage last year was £311 and an average use based on the last 6 years was £330 a year. Therefore the account was in credit by more than 1 years usage.

I also advised that unless a resolution was reached and a bill produced, I would cancel the DD before the next payment was due as no more money was going to be paid when the account was so far in credit. I advised them that this whole mess was completely unacceptable, we were talking about an 82 year old person that was having money taken out of her pension that was not necessary, all because N Power had not raised a bill for 12 months or reviewed the payments as promised. They did not know whether she had to go without other things to make sure the money was there for her DD every month and the whole thing was a complete shambles.

7. The 21st January has passed, there has been no contact from N Power and no bill received. I will be ringing today to advise them that the DD is being cancelled and no further payments will be made until a bill is produced.

A bill was asked for on 03 December 2013, therefore that is the date of the original complaint that no bill had been received for at that time 10 months. This has given them 7 weeks to produce a bill and sort the account out. So on 28 January I will be approaching OFGEM and/or the Onbudsmen.

She is within her rights to move to quarterly billing and to pay on production of a bill according to the T&C's of her tariff, so they will be reciving no money until that bill is produced.

I am now also going to write to my local MP and try to gain some media interest in this, as I believe it is a disgrace that they should treat any customer like they have especially a pensioner. A series of broken promises and failure to do what they say they will do.