N Power - What would you do?

Simon7685

Consumerist wrote: »

They added another two tariffs in December. I'm in the process of switching to Fixed March 2015, now replaced, unfortunately, by Fixed July 2015 but still competitive with reports of good customer service.

I would love to move her to the CO-OP or anywhere away from N Power but unfortunately it is not as simple as that.

Her meter is a Super Tariff meter and is not accepted by anybodies systems except N Power. I need to get them to replace the meter with a standard E7 meter before I can switch her. S Power advised that to do this may mean she has to pay for the meter to be changed herself.

Once the situation with her account is sorted out, I will be looking into getting the meter situation sorted but thanks very much for the heads up on CO-OP, I will certainly be looking at them.

Simon7685

Just to clarify with the meter set up, it is a super tariff meter that has 4 readings on it.
Day Units - 7am to Midnight
Heat Units - 12am to 7am (Storage Heaters)
Night Units - 12am to 7am (All usage except Storage Heaters)
Heat other Units 2pm to 4pm (Storage Heaters only afternoon boost)

I do not know what current prices are like as it was 12 months ago when I last looked at comparisons but at that time N Power WERE NOT the cheapest. S Power moving to a standard Economy 7 meter were £100 cheaper per year but she could not move without the meter being changed.

Once the meter situation can be sorted when the account is up to date we will look at paying for the meter to be changed if N Power will not do it. However my argument to them will be;
Their systems cannot handle either the meter, or the billing for the tariff she is on. She is prevented from switching to another tariff or another company because of this meter. Therefore she is being discriminated against and being forced to accept N Power as her supplier as other companies will not change the meter on switching, as they state it is N Powers responsibility.

Whether or not that will stand up or not, of course we won't know until we try it. However the first priority at the moment is to get them to sort the billing out and bring the account up to date, which will mean a further refund, then I will address the billing.

Even if it meant paying more for her energy, she wants to move away from N Power now because they cannot be trusted and have treated her appallingly.

Nada666

Why on earth should the company she switches to pay for changing the meter?

Again, you should be making sure you are not cutting off her nose to spite npower. What does npower care? It doesn't affect them - in fact, it would benefit them if she leaves as she has a very low spend.

Does she keep warm? Are her low bills (as in usage -ignore credit balance for now) with her keeping cosy or is she annoyingly frugal. If she is keeping toasty and if she is mainly taking advantage of the cheaper times for heating then she should not change. Of course if she is wearing quilts and has a low usage because she stubbornly refuses to abandon frugality then she can pay to change her meter. But you have to ignore your short-term frustration with npower and first of all firmly establish that the fancy heating tariff is never going to be useful for her.

Simon7685

I am not saying the company she switches to should pay for changing the meter. I am saying that N Power should pay for the changing of the meter.

1. They admit their meter is not accepted on their new computer system. It cannot accept the readings.
2. They admit that their computer cannot calculate bills on her account. Any bill produced has to be done manually and they cannot give a timeframe as to how long that will take.
3. No other company will allow a switch because of the meter, therefore N Power are in effect preventing her switching which is her right as a customer. As it is their meter that is not accepted by there computer and it cannot produce bills, my argument is N Power should pay the cost of changing the meter.
4. Not only can she not switch supplier because of the meter, she cannot even change tariff within N Power, as their computer does not recognise the meter and cannot calculate a bill.

She keeps herself very warm, if the fire needs to go on it does, her attitude is worry about the cost later if necessary, so that is not an issue.

Her average use has pretty much been the same ever since she moved in 15 years ago. The only fluctuations or spikes in use are during very cold winters, even then you are only talking £40 - £60 worth of energy on her annual bills.

Her usage on average during the last 7 years averages out to £343 a year. She does not need the tariff she is currently on, we have looked at it and it is not necessary. She only has 2 storage heaters in her small flat, there used to be 4 but she had 2 removed. Her flat is so well insulated that it is very rare that she even has more than one heater on even during winter.

The issue here is not about her cutting her nose off, it is about N Power and their failing to demonstrate a duty of care. I advised them in Jan 2013 that if payments were reduced from £35 to £30 a month then that would still be too much as her average annual cost is £343. She receives the WHD and £40 DD discount. The maths are easy;
£343/12 = £28.58 per month excluding the WHD and DD discount.
Factoring those in with a monthly payment of £30
Usage = 343
Payments = 360
WHD = 135
DD Disc = 40
Balance = £192 credit after 12 months

Last year she was on a pretty much even keel until the WHD kicked in which with the DD discount meant she was £170 in credit to start the year. N Powers answer was to try to increase her payments to £43 a month. It was only because I am there to sort it out for her that she hasn't been paying £43 a month since Jan 2013.

They have the history they have the figures and have taken the P155. They have failed in their duty of care and operated her account in a fair manner.

Even if it means paying a bit more with another supplier (which I do not think it will) and having to pay for the meter change, she does not want to stay with them and that is her choice, which I agree with. She has been a customer of theirs for about 35 years in total going back to Northern Electric days when you didn't have a choice of who supplied your energy and after how they have behaved she does not want to remain with them once this mess gets sorted out. I completely understand and agree with her.

Simon7685

IT GETS BETTER BY THE DAY

I logged onto her account this morning to see if there was any sign of the £300 being refunded. No there was not.

However one thing had changed.........

Since last night they have decided to increase her monthly payment from £30 to £51. Unbelieveable!!!!!!!!!!!

So I have been onto them once again.

A refund has been requested of £300 it will be in her bank by 28 Jan. As a result the computer has reassessed her payments and decided she now needs to pay £51 a month. They say this is a mistake and should have been overridden when the refund was requested.

I said it is beyond belief that a computer that does not recognise the meter, cannot accept the readings and cannot produce a bill is capable of reassessing someones payments. They are sorry they have made a mistake. I said sorry does not mean anything it is a word nothing more.

I then advised them that had I not gone into her online account (which she does not), this would not have been seen. Not only that as the new payment was set to be taken in 7 days time they had also failed to give the customer the obligatory 10 working days notice of a change of payment. Not forgetting that her account is still £331 in credit (after the £300 refund) with charges of £271 to be taken off when they buy an abacus so someone can learn to write and produce a bill.

They are sorry and have reset the payment back to £30 and all this will be taken into account when they produce a bill and then ring me to discuss compensation for all their failings.

I have advised them that if the £300 is not in her bank by close of business on 28 Jan, her DD will be cancelled. Also unless they produce a bill within 7 days the DD will still be cancelled. Finally if the wonderfull computer system does this again, I will allow it to happen and take legal action against them.

they have said they cannot produce a bill in 7 days, in fairness they have had since 20/02/2013 to produce a bill and can't, so I guess 7 days is expecting too much. After all it is very difficult to do!

It just gets better all the time.:rotfl:

scaredofdebt

They are having trouble processing refunds at the moment due to "systems issues"

However, if you request a refund the "system" automatically recalculates the DD amount, even if the refund doesn't go through and it is invariably wrong as "the system" cannot handle simple maths.

If you ring and demand the DD is set to £30 (or whatever you ask for) then the staff member if properly trained, should do this but may advise it runs the risk of being in debit if they feel the DD is too low.

However, DDs are automatically recalculated by "the system" if you change tariff, have a refund, every six months or sometimes for no obvious reason.

This is what you get if you pay a measly £250M for a new "system".

Getting_There_Slowly_2

I am having similar problems with Npower. My advice would be to back every phone call up with an email, because every call is a complete waste of time with them. The phone is answered quite promptly and they are sympathetic, but none of what they say comes true!

Unsure if emails will be more effective but at least there is documented evidence for the future complaint.

This is what I sent Npower yesterday:

To whom it may concern:

I have had repeated issues with payment on my account which, having discussed with customer services on 9/1/14 and again today 24/1/14, are linked to the fact that my original direct debit was set up against my electricity payment, and no direct debit was set up against my gas.

This has caused issues. To begin with I kept receiving communication telling me to reduce my direct debit, even though I could clearly see at a glance that doing so would mean my payments would not cover my usage. I increased my payment using the iphone app to ensure this would not happen.

More recently I called customer services on 9/1/14 to increase payment again, and ask why I had received another letter suggesting I reduce my payment. The lady I spoke to was very helpful, explained the situation re. no direct debit set up against my gas usage, and said they system would not allow her to change it but she would email the payments team.

Today I received a letter dated 20th January (your code DUNR!!!) stating "REMINDER" that I had recently been contacted to say my direct debit had been cancelled, and I owed £94.73, the balance on my account.

The last successful direct debit of £120 came from my account only nine days ago on 15/1/14! This, and the direct debit issue were confirmed by one of your customer service representatives on the phone at 9:30 today when I called. He also believes he has now fixed the issue, but I would like some further confirmation of this, because it should have been fixed when I called the previous time.

The reason for my email is that demands for payment are extremely upsetting. I have behaved as a model customer, managing my account properly from day one whilst trying to resolve the account issues. Npower have let me down by failing to resolve this apparently simple problem and I am rapidly losing confidence in the service provided.

I would like to add however that the individuals I have spoken to at customer services on the phone have been helpful. Had they not been I would be considerably more upset than I already am!

I am hoping that some action can be taken to resolve my account issues once and for all and confirm to me in writing that this is the case, and restore my faith in the service offered by Npower.

I await your response.

Simon7685

It appears to me that half the problem with N Power is they have that many customers complaining as a result of their mismanagement of peoples accounts that they cannot cope. That however is not the customers fault and if it is the case they should be empoying more resources to sort themselves out.

I have been contacting the Comlaints Dept direct since getting a reference number and on each occasion there has been a waiting time of 20 to 25 minutes. That in itself is not good enough from a company the size of N Power and speaks volumes of the amount of problems they have, all of their own making.

scaredofdebt

Emailing is less effective than telephoning.

They have employed more staff but need even more in the complaints team, best time to get through is around 8 AM when they open but not on a Monday. Wait time is usually under 5 minutes then.

I have had issues with my Direct Debit not being taken, it has been set up as I can see it on my internet banking but nothing has ever been claimed. So what I did was set up a Standing Order to make the payments instead as I can control that myself.

Not going to work for everyone but may help a few perhaps.

Simon7685

With regards to my Mothers account, I have taken up to date readings and calculated her position AFTER the £300 refund.

According to N Power there are 2 credits to be applied to her account by 31 January. These are £25 in respect of the OFGEM fine and a £28 one off payment in respect of them changing the DD discount system on 31 December. (This £28 is for DD discount from April 13 to 30 December 2013).

After applying all outstanding charges for energy up to 24 January her account will be £100.98 in credit. On 02 Feb the next DD will be taken and leave the account £130.98 in credit.

I have also contacted the Energy Onbudsman yesterday asking about when they can intervene. I have explained that N Power were asked to open a complaint on 03 December and did not do so, they were then asked again on 03 and 10 January and failed to open one. This is all on the account notes according to the complaints department and in any case is on the recorded calls. So I have asked if the date can be taken from 03 December as it is not the fault of the customer that N Power did not open the complaint and also lied to the customer.

So we will see what comes of that.

I am also going to write to the CEO of N Power as well as the Govt Minister with a complete file of what has gone on and I intend to ask them to intervene and get something done.

I am also aware now that the vast majority of tenants where my Mother lives have these meters and are on this tariff. According to the landlord (housing association) they have been advised by N Power that there are only around 100 customers of theirs that have these obsolete meters and this tariff.

If this information is correct then it could go a long way to explaining why N Power cannot produce bills and seem unconcerned as to resolving the situation. After all in complete fairness they have known since Feb 2013 that customers on this tariff are not being billed and have done nothing about it. 100 customers out of 5.9 million are not going to be a priority and as most probably pay by monthly DD, most are liable to be in credit, so N Power are quids in.

One thing I do know is this whole situation does show that Energy Suppliers in general have too much power and are able to do as they choose with little consequence. After all how many other circumstances do you get where a company is able to take money from people on a regular basis without producing a bill for 12 months? It seems like a complete lack of regulation to me.