Closed customer service lines - npower

Sammyantha123

Even before today's announcement about savings being held by the big 6 energy firms, I have encountered terrible trouble trying to get hold of npower following the closure if my account and recouping the small credit balance remaining on the bill.

It now seems regular practice for npower to close their customer service lines earlier than the times published. I have rung 3 times this week, at around 7pm, an hour before the published end time of 8pm, only to find the lines have been closed.

It has taken npower 5 weeks to issue my final bill (using an estimated reading??), but no instructions or direction on how my final credit balance will be given back to me.

Unbelievable.

Has anyone else encountered such difficulties?

Froglet

Hi there and welcome to this brilliant forum.A lot of us with Scottish Power are having similar problems,especially regarding contacting them.And yes they hold on to customers final credit when they switch.

The announcement today will make very little difference i fear. And i realy wouldn't know which is the best company these days.Which one are you moving to?

sam.4000

Welcome to the world of Npower, there are so many negative threads on this forum and not without cause.

I would recommend you phone at 8am on the dot as this is when their call centre opens and you normally get through quickly. I will not tell you that it will be dealt with quickly or correctly but perseverance does seem to spurs them on.

sheffield_lad

indeed give them a call at a different time of day or contact the advisor who posts on here quite often.


A lot of folk have issues with the utilities but good communication (both ways), really can easily solve the issues.




GL

fed_up_and_stressed

I've phoned npower previously at 7.50pm and got through ... Im assuming todays news has lead to a peak in call traffic. .... Trust me im definately NOT npower greatest fan....

Robwiz

I had heard nothing from npower for 7 weeks after transferring my electricity. I called them just after 2pm on Tuesday and their recorded message told me that they were taking over one hour to put calls through to agents. I hung on and got through after 22 minutes.

I had to be quite robust – they wanted me to accept that it would take them 40 days to investigate my account. The agent got to the 'fob you off' part of her script and wouldn't let me speak – so I told her to let me speak.

I asked her whether they had a legal duty to issue a final bill and return credit balances within 28 days. She agreed they did. So I asked to be put through to someone who could sort out my account that day. She did, but he had to transfer me to a third person who was able to create the final bill and put a refund through to my bank account.

I don't know whether npower cynically make it difficult for customers to get overpayments refunded or whether they are just incompetent. Either way, I would never recommend them or give them my business again.

nPower

Sammyantha123 wrote: »

Even before today's announcement about savings being held by the big 6 energy firms, I have encountered terrible trouble trying to get hold of npower following the closure if my account and recouping the small credit balance remaining on the bill.

It now seems regular practice for npower to close their customer service lines earlier than the times published. I have rung 3 times this week, at around 7pm, an hour before the published end time of 8pm, only to find the lines have been closed.

It has taken npower 5 weeks to issue my final bill (using an estimated reading??), but no instructions or direction on how my final credit balance will be given back to me.

Unbelievable.

Has anyone else encountered such difficulties?

Hi Sammyantha123,

I'm sorry to hear that you are having difficulties getting through to us. We have had to close our phone lines earlier than normal on occasions due to receiving a very high demand. This is to ensure that we are able to serve all our customer's who were already queuing.

If you haven't managed to sort out your final refund, please feel free to send me an email (using the address from my profile) with your details and I'll be happy to review your billing and chase up any credit owed to you.

Thanks

Leigh

Hazzanet

nPower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi Sammyantha123,

I'm sorry to hear that you are having difficulties getting through to us. We have had to close our phone lines earlier than normal on occasions due to receiving a very high demand. This is to ensure that we are able to serve all our customer's who were already queuing.

Why not pay overtime?

joncombe

I'm sorry to hear that you are having difficulties getting through to us. We have had to close our phone lines earlier than normal on occasions due to receiving a very high demand. This is to ensure that we are able to serve all our customer's who were already queuing.

So you're telephone lines aren't actually open the published times then?

undercover_peon

Well this is new, when I was there it was left to staff to tell customers they couldn't deal with the call. This led to no end of conflict and confusion - why can't you deal with my call you just answered it?

Regarding

"Why not pay overtime"

Why indeed, the approach taken when I worked there was to berate staff to the effect that if the call queues weren't cleared (essentially promising customers that they would recieve a callback and taking their details) then staff wouldn't be allowed to log out.

This seemed to me to be a very good way for management to further destroy morale and build animosity between them and staff.

Sadly I couldn't find anything online to suggest you could legally refuse compulsory overtime.

I think the real issue is WHY are there such backlogs given Ofgem's (timied) intervention and Npower's claims things are improving?

Regarding the callbacks they were farcical as any timescale quoted wasn't guaranteed and the callbacks were usually done between 12-4. People calling after 7 are generally doing so as they are busy within those times...

steeeveygee

It;s approx 2 months since I have left Npower and moved to OVO as my energy supplier. I have been chasing for all this time to have a refund for the amount still sitting in my account. It may not be much to them (£60) but it is quite a lot for me and I would much prefer to have it rather than leave it where it is. This week, I have phoned 3 times and each time I have got the recorded message telling me that the lines had closed early. I don;t get home until 7pm, so this is the earliest that I can call. I will try tomorrow morning, failing that I will have to contact the regulator. Very unhappy!